On the Application of Bio-Inspired Sea-Pen Blades in a Savonius Wind Rotor: A Three-Dimensional Computational Analysis

Abstract

The drag-based Savonius-type wind rotors are usually preferred to harvest wind energy at low-wind velocity conditions. These Savonius rotors are characterized by their compatibility with urban environments and small-scale standalone systems besides their direction independency, absence of yaw mechanism, and easy installation and maintenance. Recent research trend indicates the implementation of biomimetic principles into the rotor blade design to develop novel bio-inspired/nature-inspired blade profiles for improving the rotor performance. The most recent example is the Orange sea-pen (Ptilosarcus gurneyi) inspired blade profile, which successfully carries over the insights of the sea-pen's feeding mechanism to the torque mechanism of the rotor besides improving the rotor performance. The present research article is aimed at conducting three-dimensional (3D) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. The 3D transient simulations are carried out by the ansys fluent software using the shear stress transport (SST) k–ω turbulence model. The reported experimental data of sea-pen-bladed rotor performance is utilized to validate the numerical performance trends. Considering the suitability of the Savonius wind rotor in lower wind velocities, the simulations have been conducted in the range of 5–7 m/s wind velocities. The operating conditions for the sea-pen and the semicircular-bladed rotor types are identical to have a direct comparison of their performances. The numerical findings reveal performance improvement of approximately 10–13% by the sea-pen blade as compared to the semicircular blade for a given range of wind velocities.