Energy Conversion and Management 158 (2018) 36–49

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Energy Conversion and Management

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Parametric analysis of model Savonius hydrokinetic turbines through T

experimental and computational investigations
⁎
Parag K. Talukdara, Arif Sardarb, Vinayak Kulkarnia, Ujjwal K. Sahaa,
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati 781039, India
b
Tata Motors Limited, Telco Road, Pimpri, Pune 411018, India

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The drag-based Savonius hydrokinetic turbine (SHT) has an enormous potential for small-scale power generation
Savonius hydrokinetic turbine (SHT) from free-flowing water and it can be deployed especially at sites remote from existing electricity grids. These
Blade shapes, Torque coefficient turbines can be installed in waves, tides, ocean currents, natural flow of water in rivers, manmade channels and
Power efficient irrigation canals to produce power. The performance of a SHT are highly influenced by its design parameters
Tip-speed ratio
such as blade profile, number of blades, overlap ratio and aspect ratio. Although, over a period of nine dacade
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
since its invention, serveral studies have been carried out, however, no particular concencus on the optimum
design of SHT is arrived. In view of this, in the present investigation, as attempt has been made to parametrically
evaluate the performance of the SHT through experimental and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis.
The SHT under investigation has been developed in-house. Initially, a comparison of performance between two-
and three-bladed SHT with conventional semicircular blades has been carried out experimentally where their
maximum power coefficients are found to be 0.28 and 0.17, respectively at their corresponding tip-speed ratios
of 0.84 and 0.67. Further experiments with a two-bladed SHT turbine with elliptical blades have shown its
inferior performance as compared to the two-bladed semicircular SHT. The reason behind the enhanced per-
formance of the two-bladed semicircular SHT is then analyzed through two-dimensional CFD simulations.
Finally, the experiments are conducted at various immersion levels, where the performances of the SHTs are
found to degrade with a decrease in immersion. However, the two-bladed semicircular SHT maintains to have a
better performance than the others.

1. Introduction turbines can be classified into two categories, i.e. horizontal-axis tur-
bine and vertical-axis turbine. The horizontal-axis turbines are mostly
To meet the future energy demands, the tapping of hydro energy in used in tidal energy extraction due to their higher efficiency, but they
sustainable manner is a promising concept to reduce the dependency on are expensive for small-scale energy conversion [5,6]. According to
conventional energy sources. The hydrokinetic turbine technology has a Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) reports, the hydrokinetic based
tremendous potential to generate electricity from water running at low technology may generate 13,000 MW of electricity in United States by
velocity and with low head. It is an electromechanical device that 2025 [7]. Under such expectations, a tidal power plant based on ver-
converts the kinetic energy of the flowing water current into electricity tical-axis helical-bladed hydrokinetic turbine was installed in Uldolmok
and is also known as water current turbine [1,2]. This kind of turbine Strait, Korea in 2009. The plant was equipped with 1 MW capacity
can be installed in remote areas in the vicinity of rivers having little or turbine system which generates 2.4 GW h of electricity annually [8,9].
no elevated flows to harness energy from water without using im- In the year 2011, additional 500 kW was commissioned and they have
poundment structures that cause environmental disruptions [3] planned to expand its generation to 50 MW by 2018 [9]. The various
Therefore, the hydrokinetic technology is regarded as a suitable option companies like Thropto Energy Services (UK), Alternative Hydro So-
for the small-scale power generation as compared to the dam-based lutions Ltd. (Canada), Lucid Energy Technologies (USA), Seabell Int.
hydropower technology [4]. The conventional turbine uses hydrostatic Co., Ltd. (Japan), Eclectic Energy Ltd. (UK) and Alternative Hydro So-
energy (potential energy), whereas a hydrokinetic turbine requires high lutions Ltd developed and tested a range of prototype hydrokinetic
kinetic energy to generate power. Depending upon the alignment of turbines [10,11].
axis of rotation with respect to water flow direction, the hydrokinetic For generation of small-scale power, the vertical-axis turbine is

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (U.K. Saha).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2017.12.011
Received 7 October 2017; Received in revised form 22 November 2017; Accepted 4 December 2017
0196-8904/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
P.K. Talukdar et al. Energy Conversion and Management 158 (2018) 36–49

Nomenclature S tension in slack side [kg]

T torque produced by the turbine (= 9.81 × (W −S ) × (rp + dr ) )
a diameter of central shaft [m] [N m]
a′
A
major axis of ellipse [m]
swept area of turbine (=D × H) [m2]
TSR ( πND
tip-speed ratio = 60V [–] )
V free stream water velocity [m/s]
AR ( )H
aspect ratio = D [–] W tension in the tight side [kg]
b′ minor axis of ellipse [m] y+ dimensionless wall distance [–]
CP ( P
power coefficient = P turbine
available ) [–] Greek symbols
torque coefficient⎛⎜= 1 2 ⎟⎞ [–]
T
CQ
⎝ 2
ρAV R
⎠ α sectional cut angle [°]
d blade/bucket diameter [m]
dr diameter of nylon string [m]
β ( )e
overlap ratio = D [–]
θ angular position [°]
D diameter of turbine [m]
μ dynamic viscosity of water [Pa s]
D0 diameter of end plate [m]
ρ density of water [kg/m3]
H height of turbine [m]
ω specific rate of turbulent dissipation [1/s]
k turbulence kinetic energy [m2/s2]
N rotational speed [rpm]
Ω (
2πN
rotational speed = 60 [rad/s] )
Pin
1
(
power available in the water = 2 ρAV 3 [W] ) Abbreviation
Pout power output of the turbine = ( 2πNT
60 ) [W]
CFD computational fluid dynamics
R radius of turbine [m]
SHT Savonius hydrokinetic turbine
Re reynolds number ( ρDV
= μ ) [–] SWT Savonius wind turbine
rp radius of the braking pulley mounted on the central shaft
[m]

usually preferred over the horizontal-axis turbine because of certain cylinder into two halves along its axis and placing two semicircular
advantages such as design simplicity, independency of flow direction surfaces sideways. The turbine consists of the rotating components like
and ease of installation. Further, it requires lower maintenance cost as buckets/blades and endplates, which are mounted around a central
the electrical components can be installed above the free surface of the shaft. In a two-bladed turbine design as shown in Fig. 1, one of the
water. Among vertical-axis hydrokinetic turbines, Squirrel cage blades is termed as an advancing blade, whereas, the other one is called
Darrieus, H-Darrieus, Gorlov and Savonius turbines are commonly a returning blade. In such system, turbine rotates mainly due to the
used. drag force between the concave and convex side of the blades. In ad-
One of the important configurations of hydrokinetic turbines is the dition, the lift force also contributes to the net torque generation at
Savonius turbine which was invented by Finish engineer Sigurd J. different angular positions. In general, the advancing blade is subjected
Savonius in 1920 for wind energy applications [12]. It is a drag-based to more drag force than the returning blade to produce a positive
energy conversion device and its outlook resembles to an ‘S’ shape torque. Further, the negative torque on the returning blade due to drag
when viewed from the top. Savonius designed his turbine by cutting a force should be kept minimum. The main drawbacks of a Savonius

Fig. 1. Vertical-axis Savonius turbine.

37
P.K. Talukdar et al. Energy Conversion and Management 158 (2018) 36–49

turbine are that it yields low efficiency and it is difficult to integrate 1.2. Literature review on Savonius hydrokinetic turbine (SHT)
with a generator because of its low operating speed. However, Savonius
turbines have some advantages such as rotation is independent of fluid It is only during the past decade that the Savonius hydrokinetic
flow direction, good starting characteristics, simple to design and turbine (SHT) research has taken a quantum leap. Faizal et al. [28]
manufacture, cost effective and less vibrational load on the supporting studied the influence of orbital motion present in water waves to extract
structure [13,14]. The Savonius hydrokinetic turbine does not need a energy by SHT. They demonstrated that the increase in height and
yaw control mechanism since water flows in a particular direction frequency of the upcoming waves amplify the rotational speed of the
unlike wind. Considering these advantages, Savonius wind and Savo- turbine. The performance of SHT thus depends on surrounding fluid
nius hydrokinetic turbines are tested/simulated by different researchers behavior along with its design parameters. Yaakob et al. [29] compu-
all over the globe. Some of those findings are summarized herein. tationally studied the performance of a two-bladed semicircular SHT
(AR = 1.1), and reported a CPmax of 0.275 at TSR = 0.7, which matched
quite well with the experimental data. Sarma et al. [30] tested a three-
1.1. Brief history of Savonius wind turbine (SWT) bladed SHT (AR = 0.65) in an open channel at water speed (V) of
0.3–0.9 m/s. The CPmax measured during the experiments was 0.39 at
Savonius [15] initially claimed to have obtained a maximum power TSR = 0.77 which was 61.32% higher than a conventional SWT at si-
coefficient (CPmax) of 0.31 for his semicircular shaped SWT. The sub- milar input values. Further, some researchers considered different
sequent field testing of this turbine performed by Savonius indicated a performance enhancement techniques such as use of multiple stages,
CPmax of 0.37, but the same value of CPmax was not achieved by the other deflectors or blade shapes. The experimental study carried out by Na-
investigators. In the early stages of research on SWTs, the researchers kajima et al. [31] reveals that the CP value of SHT is enhanced by 10%
such as Blackwell et al. [16], Sivasegaram [17], Kahn [18], Fernando with the use of double stage configuration having 90° phase difference
[19], Ushiyama and Nagai [20] and Fujisawa and Gotoh [21] obtained in the blades. Khan et al. [32] investigated the performance of single,
CPmax in the range of 0.15–0.25. Sheldahl et al. [22] investigated the double and triple stage semicircular-bladed SHT and obtained CPmax of
performance of two and three-bladed SWT (AR = 1.0 and β = 0.15). The 0.038, 0.049 and 0.04 respectively. Golecha et al. [5] performed ex-
test revealed that the CPmax value for two-bladed configuration to be periments on SHT to enhance the performance using a deflector plate
around 1.5 times greater in comparison to three-bladed configuration. On placed at an optimum position. In such arrangement, they found an
the basis of numerical investigation, Emmanuel et al. [23] reported an increase of CPmax value by 50%. Golecha et al. [33] investigated the
improved performance of six-bladed SWT than a two-bladed SWT. Mah- performance of a modified two-bladed SHT without and with deflector
moud et al. [24] considered two-, three- and four-bladed SWT config- plate, and found CPmax = 0.15 (TSR = 0.7) and CPmax = 0.35
uration with AR = 0.5 for their performance analysis. Power coefficient (TSR = 1.08), respectively. Patel et al. [14] experimentally investigated
for the two-bladed turbine rotor is marked to be higher than the three- the influence of overlap ratio and aspect ratio on performance of SHT.
and four-bladed turbines and its CPmax was reported to be 0.09. Wene- The test revealed that peak performance at β = 0.11 for SHT with AR
henubun et al. [25] analyzed the performance of SWT (AR = 1.0 and less than 0.60. In addition, beyond AR greater than 1.8, the turbine
β = 0.15) experimentally and computationally by varying the number of performance was reported to be constant. Kumar and Saini [11] in-
blades from two to four. Two important experimental outcomes of their vestigated the performance of SHT (AR = 1.58, β = 0) with two twisted
analysis were that the three-bladed turbine delivers the best performance blades using CFD. The study indicates highest CPmax = 0.35 at
at high TSR but at low TSR, four-bladed turbine performs the best. The TSR = 0.9 for twist angle of 12.5° and V = 1 m/s. Though there seems
study also revealed that the four-bladed turbine generates higher torque to be an enhanced performance of SHT with the use deflector [6,33,34],
compared to the two-bladed or three-bladed turbine. Banerjee et al. [26] however, such additional equipment makes the whole turbine system
and Alom et al. [27] computationally investigated the performance of a more complex.
SWT with various blade shapes and revealed improved performance of
elliptical shaped blades over the semicircular blades.

Fig. 2. Adopted methodology of the present study.

38
P.K. Talukdar et al. Energy Conversion and Management 158 (2018) 36–49

1.3. Motivation plays a crucial role for achieving better performance. It is expressed as
ratio of overlap distance between the turbine blades and the diameter of
Though Savonius turbine has been used to harness power from wind turbine and this is given in Eq. (2).
and hydro energies, the flow fields around the hydrokinetic and wind e
turbines are quite different due to the basic difference between the β=
D (2)
wind flow and the open channel water flow. The wind flow is mainly
governed by pressure difference, whereas water flow predominantly where e is the overlap distance between blades.
occurs due to gravity [14]. Further, higher power density of water has The Savonius turbine with overlapping blades has better starting
attracted the researchers to study the potential of SHT. Hence, the abilities in comparison to a non-overlapping bladed design. Due to the
present study is aimed at the performance alteration of SHT with re- overlapping flow between the blades, the negative torque generated by
spect to its design parameters. Besides this, there has been disagreement the returning blade reduces and hence, the average power of the tur-
between the findings of the research groups upon the optimum number bine is increased. However, large overlap distance may results in the
of blades for the SWT. According to some researchers [22,24,35] the reduction in torque output due to the generation of vortex in the
two-bladed configuration is found to be more effective than the three- overlap region of the turbine. There is no consensus in the literatures
bladed configuration. Contrarily, there are reporting about turbines regarding the optimum overlap ratio of a Savonius turbine. Blackwell
having number of blades more than two being more effective [23,25]. et al. [16], Fujisawa [36,37], Kamoji et al. [38], Nasef et al. [39] have
However, these are the findings of SWT and no such explicit data have carried out experimental investigation and reported optimum overlap
been reported for SHT. Hence, it is necessary to inspect the impact of ratio of 0.15 for Savonius turbine. Further, few researchers like Mah-
number of blades on performance alteration for SHT. Further, a host of moud et al. [24] and Driss et al. [40] revealed that the turbines with no
blade profiles have been used in the area of SWT, however, SHTs have overlap demonstrate maximum efficiency. Conventionally end plates
employed mostly semicircular blades. Therefore, the attempt has been are incorporated at the upper and lower end of the blades. Due to the
made to find the alteration in effectiveness of the turbine due to change addition of end plates the pressure difference between concave and
in blade shape. In this connection, a recently developed elliptical blade convex surfaces of the blades is maintained throughout the height of the
having more wind energy capturing capacity is chosen in the present turbine. As per literatures, the recommended end plate diameter is
study of SHT in order to explore its performance due to basic difference equivalent to 1.1 times the turbine diameter [6,26,40–45].
in the flow field dynamics. The performance of the SHT is more often articulated in terms of the
power coefficient (CP), torque coefficient (CQ) and tip-speed ratio
1.4. Present objective (TSR). To calculate these performance indices, the water velocity,
torque, and rotational speed of the turbine are to be measured.
In view of the above, the present experimental and CFD studies are Power coefficient (CP) depicts the measure of power extracted by
thought for the first time with semicircular-bladed and elliptical-bladed the turbine from the incoming water flow. Torque coefficient (CQ) gives
SHT. Additionally, the need for turbine testing has been felt to address the power producing ability of the turbine. These parameters are ex-
the effect of different immersion levels on its efficiency. Though this pressed by following equations [6,14,34]:
issue has not yet been addressed, such immersion level experiments are Pout
essential to provide the insight about the performance deviation of the CP =
Pin (3)
turbines when there is a change in the water level. The lack of such
experimentation has led to scarcity of data required for validation of 1
multiphase flow solver or solver that deals with fluid structure inter- Pin = ρAV 3
2 (4)
action. In all, the novelty of present investigation lies with the experi-
mental testing for the effect of number of blades, blade shape and 2πNT
Pout =
turbine immersion level for a SHT. In order to meet the proposed ob- 60 (5)
jectives, initially, two- and three-bladed semicircular SHTs are tested to
find the optimum number of blades in terms of power coefficient (CP). T = 9.81 × (W −S ) × (rp + dr ) (6)
Thereafter, two-bladed elliptical SHT is tested and compared with the Cm
performance of the semicircular SHTs to find the superiority of the CQ =
T
=
CP
1
blade shape. To get more insight into the hydrodynamic performance, 2
ρAV 2 R TSR (7)
CFD simulations using ANSYS-FLUENT have also been carried out.
Finally, the effect of immersion level of the turbines have been studied. ΩR
TSR =
The complete strategy of the investigation is shown in Fig. 2. V (8)

where Pout is the power produced by the turbine (W), Pin is the power
2. Design and performance parameters
available in the incoming water flow (W), ρ is the density of water (kg/
m3), A is the projected turbine area (m2), V is the incoming water ve-
The parameters that commonly influence the performance of a
locity (m/s), T is the torque produced by the turbine (N.m), N is the
vertical-axis Savonius turbine are aspect ratio, overlap between two
rotational speed of the turbine (rpm), F is the mechanical load applied
blade/buckets, number of blades, number of stages, blade shapes, tur-
to the turbine (N), W is the tension in the tight side (kg), S is the tension
bine shaft and end plates. The aspect ratio (AR) of a turbine is a decisive
in the slack side (kg), rp is the radius of the pulley attached to the
non-dimensional parameter for satisfactory performance of SHT. It is
turbine central shaft (m), dr is the diameter of the nylon string (m) and
often expressed as in Eq. (1):
Ω is the rotational speed of turbine (rad/s).
H Additionally, Reynolds numbers (Re) is defined as the ratio of in-
AR =
D (1) ertial force to viscous force in the flow regime of the turbine. Based on
where D and H denotes height and diameter of the turbine. turbine diameter, it is expressed as [6,14]:
A low aspect ratio (< 1.5) is often suitable for Savonius turbines for ρVD
achieving structural stability. An increase in diameter of turbine results Re =
μ (9)
in increase of generated torque with simultaneous reduction in rota-
tional speed. The selection of overlap ratio of a Savonius turbine also where μ is the dynamic viscosity of water [Pa s].

39
 ratio of the
diameter of the
P.K. Talukdar et al. rotor blade to the Energy Conversion and Management 158 (2018) 36–49
distance which the
Table 1 blades overlap the present investigation, a rope brake dynamometer, which is simple
Design specifications of turbines. to install and less sensitive to its alignment to the turbine shaft, has
been employed. It is composed of two digital spring balances, which are
Parameters 2-semicircular 3-semicircular 2-elliptical
bladed turbine bladed turbine bladed turbine connected to the braking pulley mounted on the turbine central shaft
with the help of two supporting pulleys and nylon string. During the
Aspect ratio (AR) 1.00 1.00 1.00 actual experiment, initially turbine is mounted in the open channel and
Overlap ratio (β) 0.15 0.15 0.15
allowed to rotate without any load. Thereafter, the mechanical loads
Turbine diameter 250.00 mm 250.00 mm 250.00 mm
(D) are gradually added to the revolution with the help of spring balance
Diameter of blade 144.00 mm 144.00 mm 144.00 mm dynamometer. Revolutions of the turbine for an applied mechanical
(d) load are measured using contact-type tachometer having an operating
End plate 277.20 mm 277.20 mm 277.20 mm range of 0.5–19,999 RPM (Model: Lutron DT-2235B). Using this
diameter (Do)
methodology several combinations of torques and tip-speed ratios are
Central shaft 16.00 mm 16.00 mm 16.00 mm
diameter (a) evaluated at various loading conditions. Such measurements, for torque
and power, are performed using the methodology suggested by Roy and
Saha [44] and Talukdar et al. [45,46].
3. Turbine design parameters and fabrication The experiments are performed in an open channel flow at the water
treatment plant, IIT Guwahati (Fig. 6). The flume consists of cemented
The specifications listed in Table 1 are used for designing of the walls of 1.0 m wide and 0.9 m in height. However, the testing is carried
SHTs considered for present studies. out at the converging section of the flume (Fig. 6) where the measured
The schematic diagrams of the two- and three-bladed turbines with water velocity is 0.8 m/s. The velocity of the water is measured with the
semicircular shaped blades are shown in Fig. 3. help of a water velocity meter (Make: Global Water, model: FP111)
For designing two-bladed elliptical turbine, the dimensions of major with operating range of 0.1–6.1 m/s.
axis (a′) and minor axis (b′) are chosen as 262.5 mm and 175 mm so that Uncertainty analysis for the turbine performance which is function
the ratio of minor axis to major axis is 2/3. In addition, the sectional cut of different parameters is estimated by using the prescribed methods
angle (α) of 47.5° was chosen in such a way that it would result a blade [47,48]. The uncertainties (relative error) associated with the in-
profile of chord length same as the semicircular blades. The sectional dependent parameters of the turbine are as follows: digital tachometer
cut of an ellipse and elliptical shaped turbine are shown in Fig. 4a and b (0.15%), digital spring balance (0.2%) and velocity meter (1.5%).
respectively. Considering these values, the overall measurement of TSR is expected to
The blades of the turbines are developed with mild steel sheets be ± 1.51% accurate and the estimated power coefficient is expected to
having 1.3 mm thickness and are constructed in the form of cylindrical have accuracy within ± 2.13%.
halves with semicircular/elliptical shaped cross-sections having chord
length of 144 mm. The blades of the turbine are then connected to the
5. Computational methodology
central shaft of 16 mm diameter such that the diameter of the turbine is
250 mm. Hence, all the designed and fabricated turbine models have a
The flow field around the Savonius turbine is time dependent and
frontal area of 0.0625 m2. The shaft of the turbine is supported with the
complex in nature due the flow separation and wake formation. It is
help of bearings fitted to bearing housings at the top and bottom. The
difficult to capture this kind of complex unsteady flow physics using
developed experimental set-up is shown in Fig. 5. In the same experi-
classical tools like stream tube model that is based on blade element
mental set-up, all the developed turbines are mounted to perform the
momentum theory. Also, the soft-computing techniques like fuzzy logic,
experiments for torque and power measurement for each configuration.
artificial neural networks (ANN) and genetic algorithms have the pro-
mising capability to predict the power factor of several energy systems.
4. Experimental methodology Further, the adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) has the
effective methodology to estimate the power output over other soft
For the measurement of torque, either a torque sensor coupled with computing techniques [49–55]. For solving a wide range of industrial
an electromagnetic brake or a rope brake dynamometer can be used. In and non-industrial fluid flow problems, the computational fluid

Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of semicircular bladed

turbines.

(a) Two-bladed turbine (b) Three-bladed turbine

40
P.K. Talukdar et al. Energy Conversion and Management 158 (2018) 36–49

Fig. 4. Schematic view of Savonius turbine with el-

liptical blades.

(a) Sectional cut of an ellipse (b) Elliptical shaped blades

catch unsteady turbulent effects and to provide reliable results [57].

This sliding mesh technique is widely used [11,26,27,30,56,65] to
analyze the flow over vertical-axis SHT/SWT. This is why the same
computational technique has been used in the present study to simulate
the flow field around the turbines. Typical computational domain for
semicircular bladed turbine is as shown in Fig. 7. There are two distinct
regions as (a) inner rotating region which includes turbine and (b)
surrounding rectangular stationary region. The diameter of the inner
rotating zone is assigned as thrice of the turbine diameter (3D), whereas
the dimensions of the outer rectangular zone is given as 10D × 6D. The
computational domain is discretized using unstructured volume ele-
ments and inflation layers are used near to turbine wall surfaces to
resolve the boundary layer flow and precisely capture the flow physics
(Fig. 7). A uniform velocity of V = 0.8 m/s is set at the inlet, which
corresponds to a Reynolds number, Re = 2.25 × 105 whereas the
boundary condition at the outlet of the computational domain is spe-
cified as pressure outlet. The top and bottom edges of the computa-
tional domain are assigned as symmetry boundary condition far enough
from the turbine. This boundary condition allows the solver to avoid the
wall effect and to accurately replicate the experimental lateral flow
[56,65,66].
For a realistic modeling of the flow field around a Savonius turbine,
it is essential to account for turbulence. A large number of turbulence
models are available for simulating the flow based on Reynolds number
and turbine geometry. Among those, Spalart–Allmaras (SA) model,
Fig. 5. Developed experimental set-up. standard k-ε turbulence model, Realizable k-ε turbulence model, RNG k-
ε turbulence model, Shear Stress transport (SST) k-ω model and stan-
dard k-ω model can be used for turbine related simulations [11,67]. The
standard k-ε model is the basic k-ε turbulence model and is more sui-
dynamics (CFD) is the most powerful tool at present. The CFD simu-
table for the fully turbulent flow. In the turbine simulation studies, this
lation of a three-dimensional (3D) model of vertical-axis turbine is
model gives better results than SA model. Further, both the realizable
necessary when the turbine blade is not symmetrical along the vertical-
and RNG k-ε models are found to be significantly improved models over
axis. The turbine blades, in the present investigation, are symmetrical
the standard k-ε and SA models. The shear stress transport (SST) k-ω
along the vertical axis, and hence, the two dimensional (2D) planar
turbulence model is a two-equation eddy viscosity model combining the
simulations have been performed to investigate the performance of
advantages of both k-ε formulation for free stream flow and k-ω for-
SHTs. This simulation strategy favors lower computational time
mulations in the turbine boundary layer. Further, it exhibits less sen-
without remarkably compromising the accuracy as compared to 3D
sitivity to free stream conditions (far field) than other turbulence
simulations which is computationally expensive [56,57]. The previous
models. This SST k-ω turbulence model is utilized throughout the flow
2D studies have shown acceptable results for SHT/SWT [58–62]. In
field as it is well suited for simulating flow in the viscous sub-layer
addition, if the turbine aspect ratio (AR) is greater than or equal to
(near wall) where a high boundary layer accuracy is required. This two-
unity, the 2D simulations can capture the flow physics adequately well
equation turbulence model effectively captures a wider class of flows
[63]. Considering this advantage, 2D simulations, using commercial
e.g., flow with adverse pressure gradients, flow over airfoils, rotating
fluid flow solver ANSYS-FLUENT, are performed in the present study of
flows and low Reynolds number flows [65,68]. In view of this, the SST
SHT. In such context, the finite volume based (FVM) moving/sliding
k-ω turbulence model is employed along with pressure based unsteady
mesh technique is commonly used for transient flow problems. During
Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) model for computations
the simulation, the cell zones rotate or translate relative to one another
using the SIMPLE (Semi-Implicit Method for Pressure-Linked Equa-
along the grid interface. According to the literature, this method is
tions) algorithm for pressure-velocity coupling. This pressure-based
mostly employed for VAWTs simulations because of its capability to

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P.K. Talukdar et al. Energy Conversion and Management 158 (2018) 36–49

Fig. 6. Turbine testing site.

(a) Main parshall flume (b) Converging section of the flume

Fig. 7. Overview of computational domain.

(a) Computational domain with boundary conditions (b) Close up view of rotating region

solver deals the flow problem in a segregated or coupled manner. There 6. Results and discussion
are many pressure-velocity coupling algorithms viz., SIMPLE, SIMPLEC,
PISO and Coupled are available in FLUENT. The SIMPLE algorithm uses As stated, the field testing and computational simulations are per-
a relationship between velocity and pressure corrections to enforce formed to investigate the effect of number of blades, blade shape and
mass conservation and to obtain the pressure field. It ensures a good immersion level. The following subsections give the detailed analysis of
solution stability through the pressure-velocity coupling [65]. The the results obtained.
SIMPLE scheme, on the other hand, is computationally inexpensive and
its convergence is faster in comparison to other schemes. The non-di- 6.1. Effect of number of blades
mensional wall distance (y+) value achieved is found to be less than 1.
This is necessary when the SST k-ω model is employed for simulation A comparative assessment between two-bladed and three-bladed
for capturing the high levels of separation and adverse pressure gra- semicircular SHT is carried out during the field tests. The torque coef-
dients around the wall of the blades. Therefore, at the wall boundaries ficients (CQ) and power coefficients (CP) obtained experimentally are
of the blades, the flow is resolved such that the dimensionless velocity is shown in Fig. 9. Initially, at no load condition, the two-bladed and
approximated as a linear function of y+. The higher y+ will result in three-bladed turbines are found to rotate at TSR = 1.34 and TSR = 1.18
reduced simulation accuracy as the ANSYS-prescribed wall functions respectively. Then, the mechanical loads are gradually applied and as
would not resolve the boundary layer flow. Grid refinement study is mentioned in earlier section, torque, power and rotational speeds are
carried out and simulation is repeated with different refinement levels recorded. It is observed (Fig. 9a) that the rotational speed of the turbine
of the mesh. Beyond the computational domain of 3,00,925 number of reduces with the increase in mechanical load, and this leads to an in-
elements, there is a negligible quantitative change in the CP as shown in crement of CQ with the decrease of TSR. The present study also reveals
Fig. 8a. Therefore, the mesh size corresponding to 3,00,925 number of that the two-bladed turbine produces more torque in comparison to
elements has been selected for further simulation. As an outcome of the three-bladed turbine. Moreover, the two-bladed and three-bladed tur-
present findings, time variation of moment coefficient for semicircular bine stalls at maximum braking load of 1.18 N m and 0.91 N m re-
blades at TSR = 0.7 is shown in Fig. 8b. It can be seen here that the spectively. Thus, it is evident that the two-bladed semicircular turbine
quasi-steady time convergence is attained after the initial starting shows better performance in comparison to three-bladed semicircular
fluctuations of around 4 s. Such mesh independent simulations are used turbine (Fig. 9b). The CPmax for two-bladed and three-bladed turbines
for further analysis. The convergence criterion for solving the con- are found to be 0.28 and 0.17 at corresponding optimum TSR of 0.89
tinuity, momentum and the two transport equations of the turbulence and 0.71.
model is taken as 10−3 which is reported to be adequate for unsteady The unsteady simulations are performed to understand the dy-
simulations with large flow separation [11,56]. namics of water flow for two-bladed and three-bladed turbines and to
obtain more insight about the experimental observations. The

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P.K. Talukdar et al. Energy Conversion and Management 158 (2018) 36–49

Fig. 8. Grid refinement and moment convergence

study.

(a) Mesh density independence (b) Quasi-steady convergence by time

Fig. 9. Performance characteristics curves

(V = 0.80 m/s).

(a) CQ vs TSR (b) CP vs TSR

comparison of computational and experimental results for the two-

bladed semicircular turbine is shown in Fig. 10. It can be observed that
CFD results follow the similar trend with the experimental results but
with minor deviation and the CP values obtained from experiments are
higher than corresponding computational CP values. The dimension-
ality effect excluded in the CFD simulations may be accounted for this
minor discrimination.
The trends of computationally obtained CP values show similar
behavior (Fig. 10) with those of experiments. This clearly illustrates
that the flow physics has been correctly captured well in the present
simulations. The computational results are then considered for justi-
fying the experimental observations (Fig. 9). For both the turbines, the
streamline patterns for a particular orientation of blades are shown in
Fig. 11. It is evident that, due to an extra blade there is an excessive
deflection of water stream for the three-bladed turbine in comparison
with two-bladed turbine. The deflected stream otherwise would have
Fig. 10. Model validation with experimental data. struck on the following blade. As a result of this, the Coanda-type flow
at down-stream of advancing blade, gets destabilized due to generation

Fig. 11. Streamline pattern for two- and three-bladed

SHTs.

(a) Two-bladed turbine (b) Three-bladed turbine

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P.K. Talukdar et al. Energy Conversion and Management 158 (2018) 36–49

Table 2 pressure magnitude at the concave surface of the advancing blade is

Some reported studies already performed on three-bladed Savonius turbine. observed to be higher in case of two-bladed SHT as compared to three-
bladed SHT. This results in a superior drag coefficient for the two-
Investigator Blade shape CPmax TSR corresponding
to CPmax bladed semicircular SHT which in turn contributes to an improved
overall performance. Thus, the present computational simulations not
Blackwell et al. Semicircular 0.15 (AR = 1.0, 0.70 only compliment the experimental results but also help to justify them.
[16] (Wind) β = 0.17,
Re = 8.67 × 105)
Sarma et al. Semicircular 0.39 (AR = 0.65, β = 0.77
6.2. Effect of blade profile
[30] (Water) 0, Re = 2.38 × 105)
Khan et al. Semicircular 0.038 (AR = 1.82, β 0.80
[32] (Water) = 0.20) In general, the conventional SHT suffers from low efficiency.
Present study Semicircular 0.20 (AR = 1.0, β 0.71 Therefore, it is essential to improve the performance of the turbine
(Water) = 0.15, either by implementing augmentation technique or by changing the
Re = 2.25 × 105)
blade shape. The alteration in blade shape has been proven to be ef-
fective for wind turbines [26,27]. But no such efforts are reported for
of the large vortices in that region. This results in higher pressure at the hydrokinetic turbines. Hence, in the present study, the effect of ellip-
downstream side of the advancing blade and thus lesser amount of tical and semicircular shapes on performance of the SHT has been as-
energy available in flowing water is getting converted to mechanical sessed. The two-bladed semicircular turbine, which demonstrates
energy by the turbine. Therefore, reduced maximum power and mo- higher CP than three-bladed turbine, is considered here as well. For the
ment coefficients are obtained for three-bladed Savonius turbine com- elliptical-bladed turbine, the sectional cut angle (α) of 47.5° is selected
pared to the two-bladed turbine. Some of the results reported on three- [27] since the SWT with this angle has been reported to perform better
bladed Savonius wind/hydro turbine are shown in Table 2. than the semicircular bladed SWT. Performance parameters obtained
The pressure drop across the turbine blades can be examined since it experimentally are compared in Fig. 13. From the experimental in-
can directly indicate the power extraction by the SHT. Hence, the vestigations, it has been observed that semicircular-bladed turbine
pressure contours for two- and three-bladed SHT are compared in performs better in comparison to the elliptical-bladed turbine. At no
Fig. 12. The higher pressure zone at the concave side of the advancing load condition, the elliptical-bladed turbine rotates at TSR = 1.1
blade and low pressure zone at the convex side of the advancing blade whereas the semicircular-bladed turbine rotates at TSR = 1.34. The
help in creating a pressure drop which effects the turbine rotation. Such CPmax for elliptical-bladed turbine is found to be 0.20 at TSR = 0.77.
In order to obtain the flow physics and reasoning behind the

Fig. 12. Pressure contour for two- and three-bladed SHTs.

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P.K. Talukdar et al. Energy Conversion and Management 158 (2018) 36–49

Fig. 13. Performance characteristics curves.

(a) CQ vs TSR (b) CP vs TSR

Fig. 14. Velocity vector plots for semi-circular and

elliptical bladed turbines.

= 45°

= 90°

= 135°

improved performance of the semicircular-bladed turbine over ellip- around the tip of the turbine blade and (b) low speed or wake zone at
tical-bladed turbine, CFD simulations have been carried out for the the downstream of the turbine is observed. Similar trend has been re-
experimental conditions. The velocity vector plots for both the turbines ported by Kumar and Saini [11] for SHT. At θ = 45°, a maximum flow
at TSR = 0.70 are presented at different angular positions in Fig. 14. velocity of 1.8 m/s and 2.4 m/s is obtained at tip of the advancing blade
The incoming water velocity is constant up to rotating zone consisting for semicircular and elliptical bladed turbines respectively. In case of
of turbine. As the turbine rotates, two zones viz., (a) high speed zone elliptical-bladed turbine, highly aggravated sharp stream of velocity

45
P.K. Talukdar et al. Energy Conversion and Management 158 (2018) 36–49

Fig. 15. Vorticity contours for semi-circular and el-

liptical bladed turbines .

Table 3
Some reported studies on two-bladed Savonius turbine.

Investigator Blade shape CPmax TSR corresponding to CPmax

Blackwell et al. [16] Semicircular (Wind) 0.24 (AR = 1.0, β = 0.17, Re = 8.67 × 10 )
5
0.90
Fujisawa and Gotoh [21] Semicircular (Wind) 0.173 (AR = 1.0, β = 0.15) 0.90
Alom et al. [27] Elliptical (Wind) 0.33 (AR = 0.7, β = e/d = 0.20) 0.80
Kamoji et al. [38] Conventional semicircular (without shaft) 0.17 (AR = 1.0, β = 0.15, Re = 1.2 × 105) 0.78
Modified blade circular arc followed by a straight arc (without shaft) 0.19 (AR = 0.70, β = 0, Re = 1.2 × 105) 0.72
Modified rotor with shaft (Wind) 0.13 (AR = 0.70, β = 0, Re = 1.2 × 105) 0.61
Sanusi et al. [69] Semicircular (Wind) 0.24 (AR = 1.0, β = e/d = 0.15) 0.78
Patel et al. [14] Semicircular (Water) 0.20 (AR = 1.096, β = 0.13) 0.55
Nakajima et al. [31] Semicircular (Water) 0.25 (β = 0.36, Re = 1.1 × 105) 1.1
Golecha et al. [33] Modified blade with circular arc followed by a straight arc (Water) 0.14 (AR = 0.7, Re = 1.32 × 105) 0.70
Present study Semicircular (Water) 0.28 (AR = 1.0, β = 0.15, Re = 2.25 × 105) 0.89
Present study Elliptical (Water) 0.17 (AR = 1.0, β = 0.15, Re = 2.25 × 105) 0.77

Fig. 16. Performance characteristics of SHT with

three semicircular blades.

(a) CQ vs TSR (b) CP vs TSR

Fig. 17. Performance characteristics of SHT with two

semicircular blades.

(a) CQ vs TSR (b) CP vs TSR

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P.K. Talukdar et al. Energy Conversion and Management 158 (2018) 36–49

Fig. 18. Performance characteristics of SHT with two

elliptical blades .

(a) CQ vs TSR (b) CP vs TSR

vectors depart from the tip of the advancing blade which in turn de- based on complete immersion of the turbine. Therefore, experiments
teriorates the performance of the turbine (θ = 90° and 135°). Such with partial immersion are conducted mainly to forecast the degrada-
streamline pattern is expected to have lesser momentum exchange be- tion of performance with change in immersion level. All the three cases
tween the waterstream and the turbine rotor. Such performance de- viz. three-bladed semicircular, two-bladed semicircular and two-bladed
gradation due to sharp velocity vectors is also reported by Sarma et al. elliptical turbines are considered in the present study. The turbines
[30]. Further, at θ = 135°, the velocity vectors at the upstream are have been tested at 80% and 60% immersion level in addition to 100%
mainly responsible for generation of lift in the advancing elliptical- or fully immersed condition. It is known that the effective area of the
bladed turbine unlike semicircular bladed turbine. At θ = 90°, on the turbine exposed to water stream is not the total cross sectional area of
concave halves of the both advancing and returning blades are sub- the turbine for partial immersion experiments. Therefore, the only
jected to higher magnitude velocity vector for elliptical-bladed turbine, immersed area of the turbine is taken for calculating power coefficients.
hence, this accelerating flow produces low pressure on the concave side From Figs. 16–18, it can be highlighted that the performance of a
of blade and that degrades the positive moment generation on blades. SHT drops drastically with the decrease in immersion levels. The CP
Also in the gaps between the trailing edge of the blades, overlapping value drops drastically and the point of optimum TSR also shifts to-
type flow is more prominent in case of semicircular-bladed turbine wards the lower value with reduction in immersion level. However, the
compared to elliptical-bladed turbine which in turn helps in reducing trend of the CP vs TSR curve remains the same at each level of im-
negative torque generated by the returning blade. Therefore, the mersion for all the turbines. This reduction in CP is obtained to be more
overlapping flow in case of semicircular bladed turbine results in more pronounced in case of elliptical-bladed turbine at each level of im-
power output and moment coefficient. mersion. Similar degradation of CP due to partial immersion has been
Further, in order to analyze the blade-wake interaction or vorticity reported by Birjandi et al. [70] for the lift-based vertical-axis Darrieus
distribution around the turbine blades, the vorticity contours (Fig. 15) turbines. When the immersion level drop from 100% to 60%, the CPmax
of two-bladed semicircular and two-bladed elliptical SHTs at azimuthal values of three-bladed semicircular, two-bladed semicircular and two-
position (θ) of 90° are generated. Typically, in case of fluid-dynamics bladed elliptical turbines are decreased by 70%, 75% and 90%, re-
problems, the vorticity denotes the spinning motion of fluid particles spectively. In addition, when the immersion level is changed from 100
and it is expressed as curl of flow velocity [64]. The identical type of to 80%, the CPmax value drops by 58.8%, 64.2% and 80% for three-
wake structures can be seen around the blades of both the turbine bladed semicircular, two-bladed semicircular and two-bladed elliptical
geometries. However, it is observed that wakes of intense turbulence is turbines respectively. The reduced values of TSR corresponding to CPmax
generated in case elliptical SHT in comparison to semicircular SHT are shown in Table 4. Further, the braking torque of the turbines at
especially at the tip of the blades, overlapping region between the different immersion levels are shown in Fig. 19 and it is observed that
blades and also at the downstream of turbine. This degrades the per- the peak braking torque of the three-bladed turbine is maximum at 60%
formance of the elliptical-bladed SHT as compared to semicircular and 80% immersion level. It is also evident that the three-bladed tur-
bladed SHT. bine shows better performance at partial immersion conditions in
Table 3 shows some of the reported results on two-bladed Savonius comparison to two-bladed elliptical turbine. Overall, the two
wind/hydro turbines. Further, the computational investigation carried
out by Alom et al. [27] states that elliptical-bladed turbine shows better
Table 4
performance than the semicircular-bladed turbine showing a CPmax of Variation of performance characteristics with immersion level.
0.32 and 0.27 at TSR = 0.80. However, in our present study on ellip-
tical-bladed SHT shows a lesser CP in comparison to semicircular- Immersion level TSR corresponding to CPmax Torque coefficients
CPmax corresponding to CPmax
bladed SHT. It is worth mentioning that Alom et al. [27] has carried out
investigation taking overlap distance taken as 20% of the blade chord Three-bladed semicircular
length. Therefore, further extensive parametric study on elliptical- 60% 0.31 0.05 0.15
bladed hydrokinetic turbine has to be carried out to arrive at an op- 80% 0.37 0.07 0.18
timum configuration. 100% 0.71 0.17 0.24

Two-bladed semicircular
60% 0.57 0.07 0.10
6.3. Immersion experiments 80% 0.61 0.10 0.17
100% 0.89 0.28 0.31

In earlier sections, it has been emerged that option of having two Two-bladed elliptical
60% 0.37 0.02 0.04
semicircular blades for a SHT is a better alternative than having three
80% 0.52 0.04 0.06
blades. Further, the semicircular blade shape is witnessed to have an 100% 0.77 0.20 0.26
edge over the elliptic shapes of the blade. But these conclusions are

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P.K. Talukdar et al. Energy Conversion and Management 158 (2018) 36–49

In the present experimental investigation, the in-house developed

turbines have been tested at only one particular water velocity (i.e.
Reynolds number). This study, therefore, can be extended to analyze
the performance of the turbines over a range of Reynolds number (Re).
At the same time, 3D CFD simulation can also be taken up to undertand
the flow physics. Although in the literatures of SWT, the elliptical-
bladed turbine is claimed to have an improved performance than the
semicircular bladed one; however, the present study of SHT contradicts
the reported SWT data. This point seems to be very interesting and
worth investigating, and therefore, the elliptical-bladed SHT needs a
thorough analysis. Considering the various design parameters, both
computational and experimental analysis can be pursued to arrive at a
decisive conclusion.

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