Experimentally Determining the Optimum Design Configuration for Savonius Rotors

Abstract

The Savonius rotor was proposed in the early 1920's. Until now, there has been no systematic work on the optimum design configuration of Savonius rotors. In the present work, various model tests were carried out in a wind tunnel, in order to determine the optimum design configuration of Savonius rotors. The effects of seven design parameters on the aerodynamic performance of the rotors were experimentally determined. The parameters were the rotor aspect ratio, the overlap and the gap between rotor buckets, the profile of the bucket cross-section, the number of the buckets, the presence or absence of rotor endplates, and the influence of the stack of buckets. In addition, the flow around the rotor was investigated by the flow-visualization method. In this study, the influence of important design parameters of the Savonius rotor has been investigated and the rotor configuration giving the maximum torque and power has been determined.