The Influence of Upstream Installation of D-53° Type Cylinder on the Performance of Savonius Turbine

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to study experimentally and numerically the effect of installing a D-53° type cylinder in front of the returning turbine blade on the performance of the Savonius wind turbine. The D-53° type cylinder is a circular cylinder cut only on the front side of the cylinder, at a cutting angle of 53°. The cylinder having a diameter relative to the rotor diameter (d/D) = 0.5 is installed at a distance relative to the rotor diameter (S/D), which remains constant at 1.6. The configuration was tested at Reynolds number 95,000 experimentally in the open air and numerically using Commercial CFD software, Ansys Fluent. The results showed that the presence of a D-53° type cylinder in front of the returning turbine blade effectively increased the power coefficient of the turbine. The increase in the maximum power coefficient is about 24.56%. It also obtained good agreement between the numerical and experimental results.