Vo l u m e 8 - N u m b e r 1 4 - N o v e m b e r 2 0 1 2 ( 3 5 - 4 2 )

ISESCO JOURNAL of Science and Technology

Abstract

of the static pressure (Pascal) was done at a different his paper produces the 1 bucket position from 0 to Bachu Deb and 2Rajat Gupta quantitative predica360 in a step of 45 rotor 1 tions of fluid flow phenoAssistant professor, Department of Mechanical angle in a complete cycle mena based on this conserEngineering, NIT Mizoram of rotation corresponding vation laws (conservation 2 Professor & Director, Department of Mechanical to the flow direction. And it of mass, momentum, and Engineering, NIT Srinagar is observed from the anaenergy) governing fluid flow 2 r_guptanitsil@yahoo.com lysis that the maximum motion. For this, a two buchange in static pressure Silchar - 788010, Assam, India cket savonius rotor with 1 from the upstream side of E-mail:bachudeb@gmail.com shaft was designed using the rotor to the downstream GAMBIT, having a height side of the rotor is at 90 of 60 cm and diameter of 17 cm. A two dimensional and 270 rotor angle against the flow direction. Thus at Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis using this rotor angle couple is produce and reduce the negaFluent package was done to predict the performance of tive wetted area and hence high torque and high rpm the two-bucket Savonius rotor. The standard k- turbugenerate which helps to improve the power coefficient. lence model with standard wall condition was used. The Second order upwind discretization scheme was adopted for pressure-velocity coupling of the flow. The analysis Keywords: Two-bucket Savonius rotor, Static torque, Power coefficient.

Fluid Flow Analysis of Savonius Rotor at Different Rotor Angle Using CFD

1. Introduction With an increasing demand of energy resources, conventional energy is one of the most vital energy resources that become more expensive and scarce. Thus there is a need to generate power from renewable sources that help reduce the demand of fossil fuels and to save nonrenewable sources for future generation. Renewable energy is natural energy which does not have a limited supply. Renewable energy can be used again and again, and will never run out. Wind power is the most common form of renewable energy. Here, electricity is generated by blades turning turbines which run a generator. Wind power has a potentially infinite energy supply and a number of advantages to its use. Wind is a free commodity and is in infinite supply and thus an affordable renewable energy source. Further, generating wind does not produce toxins or pollutants to the environment and thus

assists in the fight against global warming. Figure 1 shows below the development of wind power in the past decade (GWEC) 2010. Wind turbines are mainly Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine (HAWT) and Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT). The Savonius type vertical axis wind rotor was first invented by S. J. Savonius in 1929 [1]. The design was based on the principle of Flettner's rotor. The rotor was formed by cutting a Flettner's cylinder from top to bottom and then moved the two semi-cylinder surfaces sideways along the cutting plane so that the cross-section resembled the letter 'S'. To determine the best geometry, Savonius tested 30 different models in the wind tunnel as well as in the open air. The best of his rotor models had power coefficient (Cp) of 31%, and the maximum Cp of the prototype in the natural wind was 37%. Applications of Savonius rotor, in general, includes pumping water, driving an electrical generator, providing

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Bachu Deb and Rajat Gupta / ISESCO Journal of Science and Technology - Volume 8, Number 14 (November 2012) (35-42)

ventilation, and agitating water to keep stock ponds icefree during the winter [2-5]. Recently, there had been some works done as to incorporate some modifications in blade design to make it useful for small-scale power requirements. Research conducted by Grinspan [6] in this direction led to the development of a new blade shape with a twist for the Savonius rotor. The maximum power coefficient (Cp) of 0.5 was reported by him. Gupta et al. [7] concentrate on three-bucket savonius rotor with a three-bucket savonius darrieus rotor. They found that the power coefficient obtained by the combined savonius darrieus attained maximum efficiency of 51%. Gupta et al. [8] studied the flow physics of a three-bucket savonius rotor with four overlap conditions in the range of 12.37% to 25.87% to find the optimum overlap i.e. 19.87% which is responsible for maximum power extraction by the rotor. Bach et al. [9] made some investigations of the S-rotor and related machines. The highest measured efficiency was 24%. McPherson et al. [10] reported a highest efficiency of 33% and the maximum power coefficient obtained by Newman et al. [11] was only 20%. Modi et al. [12] reported a power coefficient of 0.22. In the present study, the performance of twobucket savonius rotor was investigated computationally by using Fluent 6.0 CFD software.

Savonius rotor is shown in Figure 2. The height of the rotor (H) is 60cm, radius of the bucket (R) is 8.5 cm, and the diameter of the shaft (d) is 3.5 cm. The buckets were spaced 1800 apart and were fixed to the central shaft with nut and bolt arrangements.

Source: GWEC 2010

Figure 2. Two-bucket savonius rotor

2. Physical Model

Figure 1. Global cumulative install capacity of wind mill

3. Computation zone The two-bucket Savonius rotor were analyzed in a variation of complete cycle of rotation from 0 to 360 in a step of 45 rotor angle. The bucket were placed at different rotor position against the flow direction are shown in Figure 3 below. A two dimensional steady state, 2nd order upwind discretization method was adopted for pressure-velocity coupling of the flow.

Savonius rotor is a vertical axis wind turbine, its construction is very simpler and called as S-type rotor i.e. two semi-circular buckets. The mechanism of the conventional Savonius rotor is the difference of the drag force exerted by wind on advancing and returning bucket. It pushes the rotor to rotate and hence wind energy is transferred into mechanical energy. The two-bucket

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Figure 3. Position of advancing bucket at different rotor angle

4. Mathematical Formulation Mathematical model can be defined as the combination of dependent and independent variables and relative parameters in the form of a set of differential equations which defines and governs the physical phenomenon. In the following subsections differential form of the governing equation are provided according to the computational model and their corresponding approximation and idealizations. 4.1. Continuity Equation: The conservation of mass equation or continuity equation is given by (1) Where is the density, 4.2. Momentum Equation: Applying the Newton's second law (force = mass x acceleration) the conservation of momentum equation is given by (2) Where is the density, is the velocity vector, p is the static pressure, and is the stress tensor, and and are the gravitational body force and external body forces. is the velocity vector.

4.3. Energy Equation Energy is neither created nor destroyed. It is always conserved. The conservation of energy equation is given by (3) Where keff is the effective conductivity (k + k , where k is the turbulent thermal conductivity), and diffusion flux of species j. 4.4. Turbulence Model In this study Standard k- turbulence model has been used with logarithmic surface function in the analysis of turbulent flow [13]. Momentum equation, x, y and z components of velocity, turbulent kinetic energy (k) and dissipation rate of turbulent kinetic energy () have each been solved with the use of the program. All these equations have been made by using the iteration method in such a way as to provide each equation in the central point of the cells, and secondary interpolation method with a high reliability level has been employed. In the present study, the standard k- turbulence model with standard wall condition was used. The standard k- equations can be represented as:
(4) (5)

is the

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5. Mesh Generation & Boundary Condition Mesh generation [14] constitutes one of the most important steps during the pre-process stage after the definition of the domain geometry. CFD requires the subdivision of the domain into a number of smaller, nonoverlapping subdomains in order to solve the flow physics within the domain geometry that has been created; this results in the generation of a mesh (or grid) of cells (elements or control volumes) overlaying the whole domain geometry. The accuracy of a CFD solution is governed by the number of cells in the mesh within the computational domain.

6. Contour Analysis of a two-bucket Savonius rotor Contour plotting presents useful and effective graphic technique that is frequently utilized in viewing CFD results. In CFD, contour plots are one of the most commonly found graphic representations of data. The flow field was analyzed under steady-state condition for Reynolds number of Re>105. For the two-bucket savonius rotor, the contours of static pressure were obtained for different rotor angles: namely 0, 45, 90, 135, 180, 225, 270& 315. Figure 5 (a) to Figure 5 (h) show the static pressure contours of two-bucket savonius rotor at different rotor angle. These contours potray the variations of the static pressure across the rotor. Figure 5 (a) shows that at 0 rotor angle, the maximum change in static pressure at the upstream side of the concave surface will occur at 51.5 Pascal whereas at downstream side of the concave surface is at -92.3 Pascal. At 45 rotor angle Figure 5 (b), the static pressure decreases from upstream side of the concave surface to the downstream side of the convex surface i.e. 96.63 Pascal to -370.71 Pascal. However, at 90 rotor angle Figure 5 (c) there is a drastic change in static pressure from 621.02 Pascal to 597.20 Pascal from upstream side to the downstream side of the rotor. At 135 rotor angle Figure 5 (d), static pressure decreases from 148.45 Pascal to -230.15 Pascal from upstream side of concave surface to downstream side of the convex surface. Similarly at 180 rotor angle Figure 5 (e), static pressure decreases from 76.66 Pascal to -102.37 Pascal from upstream side to downstream side. At 225 rotor angle Figure 5 (f), static pressure decreases from 105.30 Pascal to -363.68 Pascal from upstream side to downstream side. At 270 rotor angle Figure 5 (g), static pressure decreases from 411.52 Pascal at upstream side to -1005.40 Pascal at downstream side. As shown in Figure 5 (h), the maximum decrease in static pressure from upstream side to downstream side is 209.42 Pascal to -336.70 Pascal.

Figure 4. Computational mesh around two-bucket savonius rotor

TABLE 1. Boundary condition of two-bucket savonius rotor

Boundary condition

Inlet: Velocity Inlet Sides: Symmetry Bucket: Wall Outlet: Pressure Outlet Turbulence level 1%

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Figure 5 (a). Static pressure contour at 0 Rotor angle

Figure 5 (b). Static pressure contour at 45 Rotor angle

Figure 5 (c). Static pressure contour at 90 Rotor angle

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Figure 5 (d). Static pressure contour at 135 Rotor angle

Figure 5 (e). Static pressure contour at 180 Rotor angle

Figure 5 (f). Static pressure contour at 225 Rotor angle

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Figure 5 (g). Static pressure contour at 270 Rotor angle

Figure 5 (h). Static pressure contour at 315 Rotor angle

Figure 5 (i) shows below the change of static pressure (Pascal) at different rotor angle in a complete cycle of rotation. From this analysis, it is found that maximum change in static pressure occurs from rotor angle 45 to 90 and then again it sharply decrease from 135 to 225.

Thus from this analysis it can be concluded that when the advancing bucket is at 45 and 270 rotor angle against flow direction is responsible for maximum generation of drag forces and hence drastic change in static pressure.

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Figure 5 (i). Variation of static pressure at different rotor in complete cycle of rotation

Conclusion In this paper, CFD analysis of a two-bucket Savonius rotor at different rotor angles namely 0,45, 90, 135, 180, 225,270& 315 was made. From steady computational analysis in the paper, it is seen that maximum change in static pressure (Pascal) occurs when the advancing bucket (concave surface) and the returning bucket (convex surface) is perpendicular to the flow direction i.e. at 90 and 270 rotor angle. Thus at this rotor angle there is a maximum generation of couple by the airstreams from upstream to the downstream side which help in smooth running of the rotor with high rpm and high torque.

References
[1] S.J. Savonius, The S-rotor and its applications. J. Mech. Engg. 53, 333338 (1931). [2] Fernando, M.S.U.K. and Modi, V. J. A Numerical Analysis of the Unsteady Flow Past a Savonius Wind Turbine. J. Wind Engg and Industrial Aerodynamics 32, 303-327 (1989). [3] Ogawa, T., Yoshida, H. and Yokota, Y. Development of rotational speed control systems for a Savonius type wind turbine. ASME J. Fluids Engg l11, 53-58 (1989). [4] Islam, S., Islam, A.K.M., Mandal, A.C. and Razzaque, M.M., Aerodynamic characteristics of a stationary Savonius rotor. Proc. RERIC and Int.J.Energy 15, 125-136 (1993). [5] Spera, D.A., Wind Turbine Technology. ASME Press (1994). [6] Grinspan, A.S., Design, development & testing of Savonius wind turbine rotor with twisted blades. Proc. 28th National Conf. on Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Power. Chandigarh, Dec 13-15, 428-431 (2001). [7] Gupta, R., Biswas, A., Sharma, K. K., Comparative study of a threebucket savonius rotor with a combined three bucket savonius -three bladed darrieus rotor. Renewable energy,33,1974-1981, (2008). [8] Gupta, R., Sharma, K.K., Flow physics of a three-bucket savonius rotor using computational fluid dynamics. IJRMET Vol.1.Issue 1, Oct. 2011. [9] Bach G., Investigation concerning S-rotor & related machines, Translated into English by Brace Research Institute, Quebec, Canada, (1931). [10] Macpherson R.B., Design, development & testing of low head high efficiency kinetic energy machine- An alternative for the future, University of Massachusetts, Amhest, (1972). [11] Newman B.G., Measurements on a Savonius rotor with variable air gap, Macgill University, Canada, (1974). [12] Modi V.J. et.al., Optimal configuration studies and prototype design of a wind energy operated irrigation system, Journal of Wind Engg & Industrial Aerodynamics, vol. 16,pp 85-96, (1984). [13] FLUENT Inc, Fluent 6.0 documentation: user's guide, 2005. [14] Jiyuan, Tu, Computational Fluid Dynamics A practical Approch, Library of congress cataloguing-in-publication data.

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