Performance Improvement in a Helical Savonius Wind Rotor

Abstract

Above all vertical axis wind turbines, for their lower cost and independent on wind direction, Savonius rotor takes the advantage to be more suitable for some implementation. Thus, many investigations have been carried out to improve its efficiency. This study emphasizes on the effect of the overlap distance and the blade shape on a helical Savonius wind turbine performance. Assessment methods based on the flow field characterizations, the variation of torque and power coefficient are performed. Thus, transient simulations using the SSTk-omega turbulence model are carried out. The numerical model is validated using wind tunnel tests. Results indicate that the non-overlapped helical Savonius rotor highlights higher maximum power coefficient of 0.124 at a tip speed ratio of 0.73 over rotors with overlap distance of 10 mm, 15 mm and 20 mm, respectively. In addition, the delta-bladed rotor improves the performance of the helical Savonius rotor by 14.51%. With the novel blade shape, the maximum power coefficient reaches a value of 0.142 at a tip speed ratio of 0.78. The obtained results present an interesting data that could provide the aerodynamic characteristics of the airflow for the designers and engineers to enhance the efficiency of the helical Savonius turbine.