An OpenFOAM based study of Savonius turbine arrays in tunnels for power maximisation

Rajagopal Vinod Bethi, Santanu Mitra and Pankaj Kumar

Renewable Energy, 2021, vol. 179, issue C, 1345-1359

Abstract: There has been a significant disruption in the energy market because of the pandemic. Now the focus is shifting towards investing more in renewable energy to address the present health and energy crisis. Wind power has gained special prominence in our clean energy transition as wind energy is the easiest to harvest, most efficient resources, and lowest carbon emitter among the available technologies. The prime focus of this study is towards implementing an array configuration of Savonius turbines beside the train track to maximize the power production. A model is set up on OpenFOAM platform and studied for the different arrangements of turbine clusters. The effect of energy production by the series of turbines was assessed by varying distance among turbines in a staggered or inline manner and the location from the train as well. A systematic characterization of the optimum Savonius turbine cluster in a railway tunnel, which is relatively an unexplored area in the energy harvesting community, has been taken up in this study. It is exciting to note that our computer-oriented result matches well with the benchmark solution and proved to be a viable green energy resource that can possibly erase the energy crisis at remote places.

Keywords: Wind energy harvesting; Array of turbines; OpenFOAM; Computational fluid dynamics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:179:y:2021:i:c:p:1345-1359

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2021.07.071

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