Study on the Interaction between Two Hydrokinetic Savonius Turbines

Abstract

Savonius turbine is simple in design and easy to fabricate at a lower cost. The drag is the basic driving force for Savonius turbine. Savonius turbines are mainly used for the small-scale electricity generation in remote areas. In real life, multiple Savonius turbines are to be arranged to form a farm to scale up the electricity generation. So, it is important to study the interaction among them to avoid the power loss due to negative interaction between turbines. The purpose of this investigation is to examine closely the effect of interaction between two Savonius turbines arranged in line. Experimental investigations are carried out to study the mutual interaction between turbines with water as the working medium at a Reynolds number of 1.2×105 based on the diameter of the turbine. Influence of separation gap between the two Savonius turbines is studied by varying the separation gap ratio (𝑋/𝑅) from 3 to 8. As the separation gap ratio increases from 3 to 8, becomes lesser the mutual interaction between the turbines. Results conclude that two turbines placed at a separation gap ratio of 8 performed independently without affecting the performance of each other.