Volume 3, Issue 12, December – 2018 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology

ISSN No:-2456-2165

A Study of Vertical Axis Turbines

Rickshit Buragohain
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Cochin University of Science and Technology
Cochin, India

Abstract:- Renewable energy has evolved substantially not required. This makes for a very compact wind turbine
to meet the growing needs of this ever-advancing world. which is easy to maintain and is able to generate ample
With growing environmental concern, and imminent amount of energy in lower wind speeds and unstable
limits to fossil fuel consumption, wind power has conditions. These turbines can also be modified to employ
regained it’s place as one of the most the use of batteries to store energy, thereby reducing and
promising renewable energy source. The most primarily possibly eliminating the need for power grids. In light of
used wind energy conversion systems are the high-speed environmental concerns among people and governments
wind turbines. Due to the extreme effectiveness and the about the depleting energy resources, the recent market for
availability of large markets for these turbines, the these turbines are only expected to grow.
potential of the Vertical axis turbine, is getting
overshadowed. Very meagre amount of research has
been put into this field as compared to horizontal types.
There are two distinctly different types of vertical axis
wind turbines: The Darrieus and the Savonius types.
Although these turbines are available in the market,
they have not been optimized fully. This paper seeks to
fabricate and study a hybrid vertical axis turbine and
shed some light on the same by virtue of exploring the
possibilities the turbines have to offer. The main reason
for using these turbines is that they have a very simple
mechanical structure and have a very adaptive design
i.e. they can use existing structures as mountings. The
vertical axis turbines are capable of catching wind from
all directions and, although less efficient, these turbines Fig 1
hardly suffer from the constantly varying gravitational
loads that limit the size of horizontal turbines. A. Wind Turbine Design
Economic analysis proclaims that if a vertical axis The wind turbine criterion [3] considered in the
turbine with a rated output of 10MW could be design process are:
developed, with at least the same availability as a  Tip speed ratio
modern horizontal axis turbine, but at a lower cost per  Blade chord
unit of rated power, then a slightly lower blade  Number of blades
efficiency as 56% to about 19-14% would hardly be of  Solidity
any significance.
 Initial angle of attack
 Swept area
Keywords:- Wind Energy, Darrieus Turbine, Savonius
Turbine, H-VAWT.  Power and power coefficient

I. INTRODUCTION B. Swept Area

The swept area is the plane of wind intersected by the
A vertical-axis wind turbines(VAWT) have their turbine blades or even more simply put it is the area swept
main rotor shaft set oblique to the wind direction (not by the turbine blades. The outline of the swept area
necessarily vertically) while the main components are depends on the rotor dimensions; thus, the swept area of a
located at the base of the turbine. Such a structure design Horizontal-Axis wind turbine is circular shaped while for a
allows the generator and gearbox to be located closer to the straight-bladed Vertical-Axis wind turbine the swept area
ground. These turbines work remarkably at low wind has a rectangular shape and is calculated using:
speeds. The Savonius turbine performs well at low wind S=2RL
speeds and even when the wind direction changes. The
structure is quiet, easy to build and rather small. However, where S is the swept area [m2], R is the rotor radius
it has a very low efficiency as compare to the Darrieus [m], and L is the blade length [m]. The amount of air
turbine. A combination of both these turbines mounted on passing through the turbine is controlled by the swept area.
the same axis gives the advantages of both while The wind drives the turbine so as to produce a rotational
compensating for each other’s disadvantages. Since they movement in a way that bigger the swept area more is the
can be mounted on existing structures, tower structures are power generated in the same wind conditions.

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Volume 3, Issue 12, December – 2018 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
C. Power and Power Coefficient different blade number have minor distinctions and the
The power attained from wind depends mainly on thrust force acting on the rotors is similar for the optimal
three factors: wind speed, air density and blade radius. For operation range of the rotors. From a power optimization
a VAWT the power obtained can be calculated from the point of view, the mean wake velocities provide only a
following formula: minor potential for improvement. Also, the number of
ρS𝑉 3 blades has no influence on the velocity deficit and
𝑃= consequently, neither does it have any effect on the
2
potential inflow velocities of a downward turbine.
where V is the wind velocity [m/s] and ρ is the
density of air [kg/m3]. G. Blade Solidity
The power the turbine takes from wind is calculated Blade solidity is crucial design parameter for a
using the power coefficient: VAWT. It depends mainly on the blade chord, number of
blades and rotor radius. An increment in length of the blade
𝐶𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑚𝑒𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑝𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝑏𝑦 𝑏𝑙𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑠 chord raises the tip speed ratio at which the maximum
𝐶𝑝 = power coefficient can be achieved, because the chord
𝐴𝑣𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑝𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝑖𝑛 𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑑
length and the tip speed ratio are inversely proportional to
Cp value exhibits the fraction of the total available each other. In order to reduce the centrifugal force, a
power which is actually taken from wind, and can also be lengthier chord may prove more effective than a lighter
understood as its efficiency. A theoretical limit is imposed blade. However, a bigger chord will advance the point of
to the efficiency due to the deceleration effect wind suffers maximum torque. Blades with smaller chords need a bigger
when going through the turbine. For a HAWT, the limit is tip speed ratio to develop a higher torque. The blade
set at 59.3%, also called the Lanchester-Bentz limit. solidity will also inadvertently affect the self-starting
Likewise, the limit set for VWATs is 64%. These restrain capabilities of the turbine.
are a result of the momentum theory or actuator disk theory
which assumes that flow through the actuator disk is H. Initial Angle of Attack
uniform and that the disk has no swirl effect on the flow. The initial angle of attack is the angle between the
Most of the currently available wind turbines exhibit power chord line of the blade and the vector of the relative motion
coefficients between 0.15 to 0.2. between the turbine and the wind. The critical angle of
attack is the angle which provides the best lift for the
D. Tip Speed Ratio aerofoil section. At a lower angle of attack, the lift
The power coefficient depends excessively on tip coefficient decreases and conversely, at a bigger angle of
speed ratio. For maximum power acquisition a wind turbine attack the air flows less smoothly and as a result tends to
must be operated around its optimal tip ratio. It is the ratio move away from the upper surface.
of the tangential speed at blade tip and the actual wind
speed.

𝑇𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑡 𝑏𝑙𝑎𝑑𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑝 𝑅𝜔

𝑇𝑆𝑅 = =
𝐴𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑉

where ω is the angular speed [rad/s], R is the rotor

radius [m] and V is the ambient wind speed [m/s]. Each
rotor design has an optimal tip speed ratio at which the
maximum power extraction is achieved.

E. Blade Chord
The blade chord is the imaginary line joining the
trailing edge and the point of intersection of the leading
edge and the chord line of the blade profile. However, most
of the turbine blades are not rectangular, and so have a
different chord at different positions along their length.

Therefore, to give a unique value which can be

compared to other blade chord values, the mean
aerodynamic chord or MAC is used.

F. Number of Blades
The smoothness of the operation of a turbine is
closely governed by the number of blades, since they
compensate for the cycled aerodynamic loads. For ease of
manufacturing, three and four blades are generally taken. Fig 2:- Force vectors for a HAWT
Researches show that the wakes formed behind rotors with

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Volume 3, Issue 12, December – 2018 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
II. ROTOR DESIGN D. Rotor Dimensions
The torque produced by the turbine heavily depends
A. Starting Parameters on the certain design factors like the blade length and rotor
To make the most efficient use of time and the radius, more so than on others. In general, a longer blade
resources available for the design process, few parameters and a bigger radius will result in a higher torque. These
have to be altered, so as to concur to the objective. The parameters are significant for solidity calculations as well.
design air speed, swept area, and initial angle of attack will While scaling the wind turbines solidity becomes a very
be optimized for maximum efficiency. Most of the power crucial factor and as an extension so does the rotor
coefficient values for the turbines available in the market, dimensions. To decide upon a suitable dimension, a CFD
lie within 0.15 to 02. To produce power of 100W with a model, which tests various combinations against set
wind of speed 6m/s a swept are of 4 to 5.2 m2 is required. parameters, is used [4]. (Figure 4)
(Appendix 1, Table 2)

B. Air Foil Selection

The air foil considered here is the NACA0021. The
aerodynamic properties of this particular air foil were
determined from an air foil property synthesizer code in a
journal (given in Appendix 2, Table 3). This is one of the
thickest profiles available for an air foil (21% chord) and
comparing with NACA0015, it is seen that the self-starting
properties improve with thicker foils (Figure 3).

Fig 4

E. Rotor Solidity
The ratio of the total blade area and the projected
turbine area is called the rotor solidity (σ). It is an
important non-dimensional parameter which affects self-
starting capabilities. For a straight bladed VAWT it is
calculated with:
𝑁𝑐
𝜎=
𝑅

Fig 3:- Performance comparison between two different air where N is the number of blades, c is the length of
foil. blade chord, L is the blade length and S is the swept area
(considering that each blade sweeps the area twice). To
C. Design Airspeed achieve a self-starting turbine, rotor solidity is kept at least
A significant shift in the power coefficient is seen as greater than 0.4 i.e. σ ≥ 0.4.
the free stream velocity is varied from 0 to 15 m/s. however
beyond this airspeed the power coefficient remains almost F. Initial Angle of Attack
constant at each tip speed ratio as can be observed in the The initial angle of attack is usually kept positive
adjoint graph. Also, the torque increases noticeably due to because it increases the range of angular speed operation. A
its quadrate dependence on air speed. Although, the rated negative angle of attack narrows the said range. Even the
wind speed varies from 11.5 to 15 m/s, a lower speed lying torque gets affected similarly resulting in a lower
between cut in and rated speed has the potential of maximum power coefficient and torque for negative angles
producing more gross energy. of attack. Various angles of attack will be tested for the
CFD model.

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Volume 3, Issue 12, December – 2018 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
III. HYBRIDISATION Subsequent studies [8] have shown that allowing air
to flow between each side of the rotor can improve
efficiency significantly. A simple modification to the
original Savonius model, was by overlapping the rotors
(Figure 7). This allowed air to flow between each of the
sides, thus improving the efficiency.

Fig 5:- Types of Hybrid Rotors

The basic two types of hybrid configurations are

considered here are shown in (Figure 5). Type A installs
the Savonius rotor inside the Darrieus rotor and Type B has Fig 7:- Overlapping Savonius rotors
the Savonius rotor outside the Darrieus rotor. The Type A
design has an outstanding operating response to varying The hybrid vertical axis turbine is supposed to be
wind speed and can be compactly designed because of a very versatile, and able to perform in many different
shorter rotational axis, is an effective way for stand-alone environments. The Savonius VAWT rotor is a basic rotor
small-scale systems that is characterised by its simple construction and its
ability to excel at low wind speeds. It can accept wind from
The Savonius rotor is self-starting and produces high any direction and provide high torque at low rotational
torque at low speeds. It is used to jump start the Darrieus speeds. However, the Savonius rotor is restricted to a lower
rotor, which is not self-starting, but has a comparatively efficiency level as compared to other rotors and low
high efficiency. [6] The original study by Savonius [7] only rotational speeds.
considered a single basic rotor design. The classic Savonius
rotor does not have any airflow between "buckets" (Figure The operation of Darrieus rotor is based on lift forces.
6), rather, the buckets are either connected or a pole blocks Although it excels in moderate wind speeds, and is able to
the flow between the buckets. perform in low wind speeds, the torque produced is very
modest. It also lacks the self-starting capability of the
Savonius rotor. In the proposed design for the hybrid
VAWT, the Savonius rotor provides the external assistance
needed to jump start the Darrieus rotor.

Fig 6:- Classic Savonius Rotor with no air flow between

buckets
Fig 8:- Various Air Foil Profiles for Darrieus rotor

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Volume 3, Issue 12, December – 2018 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
Accordingly, design aspects need to be considered produced. The standard design convention for Darrieus
and final decisions made for the Darrieus part of the turbines used in high wind regions, is a chord length of
HVAWT. All the data currently available for Darrieus about 10-20% of the length of the blade. However, the data
turbines are optimized for high speed winds. Even the available for the chord length for a low wind speed region
standard design rules were devised for high speed winds. is very clouded. As mentioned before, Darrieus turbines
produce very low torque values at lower wind speeds. To
compensate for this low torque, the chord length can be
increased. Although this will solve the problem of having a
lower torque, it will give rise to other issues like, a higher
manufacturing cost and an increased weight which will
interfere with the turbine’s ability to gain momentum
quickly.

The vertical axis turbine is a versatile turbine that

performs admirably in lower wind speeds, is able to accept
wind from any direction without having to break down or
stall under heavier loads. However, this the VAWTs do
face the issue of a constant back track due the wind flowing
in the opposite direction (due to the circular motion). This
reduces the efficiency of the turbine by almost 30 times as
compared to a Horizontal VAWT. [11]

Fig 9:- Various Rotor Configurations of Darrieus Design IV. CONCLUSION

Since no data was available for a Darrieus turbine After studying various publications and journals done
optimized for low speed winds, the available statistics were in the wind turbine field it has been observed that a lot of
considered for the design. The most common Darrieus research has been done in the high wind speed types i.e. the
blade profiles are the NACA 0012 and NACA 0015 -which large-scale grid operating wind turbines. The reason for this
are both symmetrical profiles. Guillaume [10] studied the being is a larger market and potential profits. Although
difference between the standard symmetrical profiles and small scale turbines are available in the market, they have
specially designed cambered profiles. not been optimized fully and are not a viable option in
many areas either. Especially in case of Vertical axis
According to his report, the S2027 blade profile turbines the amount of research is lower compared with
increased the overall energy produced, by about 16% over horizontal types. This is partly due to the complexity in
the standard NACA 0015. Another crucial design manufacturing and maintaining them. But for small scale
parameter in the Darrieus turbine is the number of blades. operations these vertical axis types have a greater
Commercially available Darrieus turbines use between possibility to operate at low wind speeds and with this
three to nine blades. Although, some of them use an project the aim is to bring in a more efficient design for the
unusually large number of blades. The number of blades same. The research in this regard have not performed CFD
finally decided upon for any turbine is based on two major modelling to check the working of their designs in multiple
factors: the power produced by each blade and the conditions other than the ones they have tested in their
interference of each blade on the others. More the number wind labs with their physical model. This research gap is an
of blades more is the interference on each blade. But, since opportunity for this project to move forward. This CFD
a greater number of blades results in a higher efficiency, model can be created and compared to the actual data
same as lesser interference results in a higher efficiency, an retrieved by Letcher [12] and determine the accuracy of the
optimal number of blades are selected, considering the aim model. A further analysis can be done considering the
of the turbine and conditions at which it’s going to perform Savonius rotor to be placed in between the Darrieus rotor
in. The last design parameter considered is the chord and check for the feasibility of such design alteration.
length. The chord length has the most impact on the torque

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Volume 3, Issue 12, December – 2018 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
V. APPENDICES

 Appendix 1: Market Analysis

Table 1:- Blade Ratings of Different Manufacturers

Table 2:- Specifications of different Blades

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Volume 3, Issue 12, December – 2018 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
 Appendix 2: Air foil Dimensions [9] Brahimi, M. T., Allet, A., & Paraschivoiu, I. (1995).
Aerodynamic Analysis Models for Vertical- Axis
Wind Turbines. International Journal of Rotating
Machinery , Vol.2 No. 1 pp. 15-21.
[10] Guillaume, Algazze Duc,(2009),Economic Feasibility
of wind turbines for individual households. EWEC
Proceedings.
[11] N.A Ahmed. (2013), A novel small scale efficient
wind turbine for power generation, Renewable Energy.
pp. 79-85.
[12] T. Letcher, Small Scale wind turbines optimized for
low wind speeds.

Table 3:- NACA0021 Air foil Dimensions

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[2] Henry Louie, Vincent Van Acker, Steve Szablya , and
Peter Dauenhauer (2012), Opportunities and
Challenges for Micro wind turbines in developing
communities.
[3] Javier Castillo (2011), Small scale vertical Axis wind
turbine design.
[4] Anderson. (1995), Computational Fluid Dynamics,1st
Edition, McGraw Hill Education.
[5] Tetsuya Wakui and Yoshiaki Tanzawa and Takumi
Hashizume and Toshio Nagao, (2009), Hybrid
configuration of Darrieus and Savonius. Rotors for
stand-alone wind turbine-generator systems.
[6] Fábio Mendonça, Joaquim Azevedo. (2017), Design
and Power Production of small scale wind turbine.
[7] Savonius SJ. (1931). The S-rotor and its application.
Mech Eng 53.
[8] Fujisawa, N., & Gotoh, F. (1992). Visualization study
of the flow in and around a Savonius rotor.
Experiments in Fluids, Vol.12, pp. 407-412.

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