Numerical study on the effect of width of single curtain on the performance of Savonius wind turbine

Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Machineries Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember Kampus ITS – Keputih – Surabaya, Indonesia

^* Corresponding author: triyogi@me.its.ac.id

Abstract

This is a preliminary results of the flow around the Savonius wind turbine with installing curtain plate in front of the returning blade turbine. It was investigated numerically in a uniform flow at Reynolds number of 30,000 and 90,000. The velocity vector and pressure distribution around the turbine were simulate by varying the width of curtain plate relative to the diameter of rotor blade (S/D) of = 1.00, 1.02, 1.03, 1.15, 1.41, and 2.00, using STAR CCM++ Software. The k-ɛ realizable as turbulence model was used to visualize the flow phenomena occurred around the turbine, and where in this simulation, the rotor turbine was set static. The results show that it seems the width of the curtain installed in front of the returning blade of the turbine plays an important role in the performance of the turbine. In general, the installing of the curtain in front of the returning blade of the turbine is more effective to improve the turbine performance. This is not necessarily, but depends on the width of the curtain and the number of Reynolds (Re). For the width of the large curtain of S/D = 2 at Re = 90,000, the performance of the turbine is estimated lower than when the turbine without the curtain.