Numerical Simulations of Spherical Vertical-Axis Wind Rotor

In this paper, the effects of the shape of three types of the blade on power coefficient of Savonius rotors are studied by simulating the model using numerical simulation under the same conditions. For this purpose, three spherical rotors with different configurations but identical number of stages and blades, aspect ratio and overlap keeping the identical projected area of each rotor are constructed. The geometries of blade of the three rotors are a plane, a semi-circle and a quarter of sphere. The building data are calculated on the basis of the nominal wind velocity V= 10m/s and the speed ratio λ= 0.3 with an industrial flow simulation code (ANSYS-Fluent). The result shows that the rotor with semicircular blades has a higher value of power coefficient in comparison with other rotors.