Experimental Investigation of Three Bladed Inclined Savonius Hydrokinetic Turbine by using Deflector Plate

Abstract

This paper discusses the development of experimental test rig for an inclined Savonius hydrokinetic turbine with improvement in coefficient of power by using deflector plates. The hydrokinetic turbine was designed for different water flow velocities ranging from 1.37 m/s to 2.28 m/s in an open channel with an area of 0.0891 m 2. The hydrokinetic turbine with tip speed ratio (λ) = 0.8, aspect ratio (AR) = 0.72 was designed with 222 rpm as the maximum speed. To capture maximum energy from the water, the deflector plate was used to increase the velocity at the advancing side of the blade. The experiment was conducted with a deflector plate and without deflector plate conditions. The extreme coefficient of power obtained was 0.24 for a returning blade angle of 60° with deflector as compared to returning blade angle of 21° and 107°. The coefficient of power without deflector and an inclined shaft was obtained as 0.11. The experiment was performed with deflector plates with various configurations, and the torque was measured for different flow velocities.