International Research Journal of Education and Technology

Savonious rotors continue to interest research investigators in view of its many advantageous features. The simple design of the rotor enables the achievement of a low cost and compact wind power device, although its efficiency may not be comparable with other vertical axis machines such as Darraeus rotor. In wind deficient zones, one can adapt these rotors with success. Different configurations of the Savonious rotor have been proposed to overcome some of the limitations of the earlier Savonious rotors, which have very low tip speed ratios. Design guidelines have been enunciated for the design of the rotors, based on experience with field-installed rotors. Although a few CFD investigations have been reported on the flow analysis of Savonious rotors earlier, there appears to be no serious attempt made earlier for a three-dimensional analysis of flow distribution in these rotors to enable a more realistic understanding of the rotor behavior.     In the present paper an attempt is made to carry out a detailed three-dimensional CFD analysis of the basic configuration of the Savonious rotor. A parametric analysis is carried out to understand the performance of the rotor.  Comparisons have been made between the results obtained from the three-dimensional analyses with those from two-dimensional analysis by the authors and reported elsewhere. The commercially available Fluent version 6.1.2 has been used extensively in the present analysis.

Keywords:  Savonious rotor, CFD analysis, wind energy, twin rotor.