CFD Calculations of Average Flow Parameters around the Rotor of a Savonius Wind Turbine

Jan Michna and Krzysztof Rogowski ()
Additional contact information
Jan Michna: Institute of Aeronautics and Applied Mechanics, Warsaw University of Technology, 00-665 Warsaw, Poland
Krzysztof Rogowski: Institute of Aeronautics and Applied Mechanics, Warsaw University of Technology, 00-665 Warsaw, Poland

Energies, 2022, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-17

Abstract: The geometry of a conventional two-bladed Savonius rotor was used in this study based on a report available in the literature. A two-dimensional rotor model consisting of two buckets and an overlap ratio of 0.1 was prepared. The unsteady Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) equations and the eddy-viscosity turbulence model SST k-ω were employed in order to solve the fluid motion equations numerically. Instantaneous velocities and pressures were calculated at defined points around the rotor and then averaged. The research shows that the operating rotor significantly modifies the flow on the downwind part of the rotor and in the wake, but the impact of the tip speed ratio on the average velocity distribution is small. This parameter has a much greater influence on the characteristics of the aerodynamic moment and the distribution of static pressure in the wake. In the upwind part of the rotor, the average velocity parallel to the direction of undisturbed flow is 29% lower than in the downwind part.

Keywords: Savonius; wind turbine; VAWT; CFD; RANS; turbulence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/1/281/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/1/281/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:16:y:2022:i:1:p:281-:d:1016399

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().