Optimization of a Savonius hydrokinetic turbine for performance improvement: A comprehensive analysis of immersion depth and rotation direction

The turbine system converts the kinetic energy of water flow to electricity by rotating the rotor in a restricted waterway between the seabed and free surface. A turbine system's immersion depth and rotation direction are significantly critical in the turbine's performance along with the shape of the rotor. This study has investigated the hydrodynamic performance of the Savonius hydrokinetic turbine (SHT) according to the immersion depth and rotation direction using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. The instantaneous torque, torque coefficient, and power coefficients are calculated for the immersion ratios Z/D ranging [0.25, 3.0] and both clockwise (CW) and counterclockwise (CCW) rotations. A flow visualization around the rotor is shown to clarify the correlation between the turbine' s performance and the flow field. The CFD simulations show that the CCW rotation produces a higher power at shallow immersion, while the CW rotation performs better at deeper immersion. The immersion ratio should be greater than the minimum of Z/D=1.0 to obtain the maximum power production regardless of the rotation direction.