A NUMERICAL STUDY OF THE TURBULENCE MODEL INFLUENCE ON A SAVONIUS WIND TURBINE PERFORMANCE BY MEANS OF MOVING MESH

Abstract

This numerical research has investigated the influence of the turbulence model on a Savonius wind turbine performance. The numerical simulation has been applied by using two-dimensional analysis of Computational Fluid Dynamics through moving mesh technique to solve the incompressible Unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes equations. In this study, the turbulence model has used RNG k-epsilon, standard k- epsilon, Realizable k- epsilon, SST k-omega, standard k- omega, and spalart-allmaras. Firstly, the numerical model has been verified by the experimental data towards the torque coefficient at a tip speed ratio (TSR) of 1.078 and has used the Realizable k-epsilon (RKE). Then the turbulence models are compared with experimental data towards torque coefficient at TSR change. The verification has been achieved and compared to the turbulence model variations. The results of numerical simulation reveal that Realizable k-ε (RKE) has the performance approach of experimental data within the Cp Error about 1.67% at TSR of 0.9.

Keywords

• Savonius vertical axis turbine
• moving mesh
• turbulence model
• realizable k-epsilon
• performance.