Influence of blade numbers, overlap ratio and modified blades on performance characteristics of the savonius hydro-kinetic turbine

• Main Authors: Thiyagaraj, J., Rahamathullah, I., Anbuchezhiyan, G., Barathiraja, R., Ponshanmugakumar, A.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Flips; Hydrokinetic energy; Number of blades; Overlap ratio; Power coefficient; Savonius turbine
• ISSN: 2214-7853; 2214-7853
• DOI: 10.1016/j.matpr.2021.02.568

•Two blade savonius turbine shown better performance than 3,4,5 and 6 blade turbine.•The optimum overlap of 0.2 has shown better performance characteristics.•M4FX2 shown better performance characteristics and improved torque coefficient than others.•Flip attached in front of the main blade shown improved performance characteristics. Savonius turbine is a drag based simplest vertical axis turbine. More attention has been given to savonius hydrokinetic turbine compared to the savonius wind turbine for the last ten years due to the possibilities of rural electrification through savonius hydrokinetic turbine. Various research works on savonius wind turbine has been reported since invention but few works only reported on savonius hydrokinetic turbine. The present work is carried out to improve the power coefficient of savonius hydrokinetic turbine by varying blade numbers, overlap ratio and adding flips with the conventional savonius. Two blade savonius hydrokinetic turbine shown maximum power coefficient of 0.105 compared to 3, 4, 5 and 6 blade configuration. Savonius turbine with 0.2 overlap shown maximum power coefficient of 0.14 among the other overlap configurations of 0, 0.1, and 0.3. The maximum power coefficient of 0.154 was obtained in modified four bladed fixed flip type (M4FX2) savonius turbine in which the flips were arranged in front of the concave side of the conventional 0.2 overlap savonius turbine. Modified four bladed flip savonius turbine shown better power coefficient than the conventional savonius turbine.