Date of Award

2013

Degree Type

Thesis

Department

Mechanical Engineering

First Advisor

Rashidi, Majid

Subject Headings

Wind turbines, Turbines -- Blades, Engineering design -- Mathematical models, Savonius Wind Turbine Wind Turbines 2-Blade Turbine 3-Blade Turbine CFD Betz Limit Fluid Flow Analysis Ansys Torque Power

Abstract

This project involves study of 2-Blade and 3-Blade Savonius vertical wind turbines positioned at different orientations. For a 2-Blade turbine the orientations considered were 0 degree, 45 degree, 90 degree and 135 degree in reference to the direction of the prevailing wind and for the 3-Blade turbine the orientations taken into account were 0 degree, 30 degree, 60 degree and 90 degree in reference to the direction of the prevailing wind. The basic aim of this thesis was to study how the two designs are different from each other and which design produces more power when applied with constant wind velocity of 10mps. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analyses were conducted for every case to find out the torque and power generated by the turbines for each orientation. To ensure the accuracy of the results, CFD techniques were applied using Gambit 2.2.30 and Fluent 6.2.16. All cases were run using "transition-SST" flow model and the faces were meshed using 'Quadrilateral Pave' meshing scheme. The turbine was also tested for varying wind velocities of 5mps, 20mps, and 30mps for a constant orientation of turbine. The results were later compared and graphs were created for easy comparison of power and torque generated by turbines at different velocities. Maximum change in pressure occurs when 2-Blade turbine in perpendicular to direction of wind flow direction i.e. at 90 degree and when 3-Blade turbine is at 60 degree orientation. The 2-Blade Turbine generates higher value of torque (215.28 N) as compared to 3-Blade turbine, generating torque of value 110.92 N for any given constant wind velocity 30mps in this case. This information can help the designer of the system to select the proper wind turbine considering the efficiency and stability along with other factors

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