Numerical investigation on the performance of an innovative Airfoil-Bladed Savonius Hydrokinetic Turbine (ABSHKT) with deflector

Abstract

Hydrokinetic energy has the least environmental impact and a high potential for small-scale energy production. Savonius hydrokinetic turbine extracts the hydrokinetic energy from the water current. It has a simple design and is inexpensive and quiet. The NACA6409 blades are implemented in place of conventional semi-circular blades of the Savonius hydrokinetic turbine and the newly Airfoil Bladed Savonius Hydrokinetic Turbine (ABSHKT) is developed. The deflector plate is implemented to enhance the performance of ABSHKT. A Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation is conducted to analyze and compare the performance of ABSHKT with deflector to the conventional Savonius hydrokinetic turbine with deflector, with inlet velocity 1 m/s at various TSR range between 0.7 to 1.1. The present investigation shows that, the maximum power coefficient for ABSHKT and SHKT with deflector is 0.227 at 0.8 TSR and 0.25 at 0.8 TSR respectively. The ABSHKT with deflector has lower performance compared to SHKT with deflector. Implementing the enhanced augmentation technique is advisable to improve the performance of ABSHKT. The flow field spreading around the ABSHKT and SHKT with deflector is analyzed and discussed to compare the performance of both turbines with various aspects.

Keywords

• ABSHKT-Airfoil Bladed Savonius Hydrokinetic Turbine
• SHKT-Savonius Hydrokinetic Turbine
• TSR-Tip Speed Ratio, Ct-Coefficient of Torque
• Cp-Coefficient of Power