Robust design of Savonius wind turbine

Abstract

The Savonius wind turbine, a class of vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT), is simple and provides a better cost-benefit ratio. It works on the principle of differential drag and is effective in rooftop and ground mounting. Despite the advantages of Savonius wind rotors, they are not preferred due to their low aerodynamic performance levels. In order to address this, several experimental and numerical studies have been carried out in recent years. The primary aim of this work is to provide a simple methodology for the robust optimal design of the Savonius wind turbine. In the parameter design stage, the performance of the turbine is maximized using the traditional Taguchi method. An L27 orthogonal array is used considering five factors of three levels each, which affect Cp. Wind speed is considered to be the noise factor. Signal-noise ratio (SNR) metric is used to find the optimal settings for robust design. The aerodynamic performance of the turbine is investigated through dynamic computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models of the design sets. The numerical models used for the simulations are also discussed.