The Influence of Deflector on the Performance of Cross-Flow Savonius Turbine

Abstract

Several factors, including the accessibility of energy sources, influence the movement of human activities in this era. However, humans still rely on fossil energy sources. For example, petroleum is non-renewable and can pollute the environment. As a result, researchers have recently been competing to produce various forms of using renewable energy sources. Ocean current energy is one of Indonesia's greatest energy potentials and a hydrokinetic turbine is a device that can harness it. Due to its ability to run on low-speed currents, the vertical-type Savonius turbine has been developed by numerous researchers up until this point. However, there has not yet to be much advancement in the cross-flow type Savonius turbine. The turbine's performance is investigated in this study by adding a flow deflector because the water flow that propels the returning blade is diverted and intensifies the advancing blade flow. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software has been used to conduct the analysis. The deflector has been added, and the results have showed an average performance improvement of 12% in overall variations. The maximum Cp of 0.299 has been achieved with a deflector configuration angle of 42° at a TSR of 0.74.