Renewable Energy 136 (2019) 127e138

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Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Parametric sizing optimization process of a casing for a Savonius

Vertical Axis Wind Turbine
E. Antar, M. Elkhoury*
School of Engineering, Lebanese American University, P.O.Box: 36, Byblos, Lebanon

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The aim of this work is to improve the performance of a Savonius Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) by
Received 9 April 2018 sizing a suitable rotor guide plates configuration, or what is called a turbine’s casing, using Computa-
Received in revised form tional Fluid Dynamics (CFD) technique. Starting from a proposed baseline casing design, a 2-D parametric
19 November 2018
optimization process was followed, where several design parameters pertaining to the casing’s geometry
Accepted 26 December 2018
were assigned and optimized. Owing to the limitations of the 2-D numerical simulations, the optimized
Available online 4 January 2019
casing dimensions were extracted and used to carry out 3-D numerical investigations. The turbine with
the optimized casing readily performed better than the caseless one, especially at lower Tip Speed Ratios
Keywords:
Savonius wind turbine
(TSR). In addition, the obtained results showed that there exist no universal optimal values for the casing
Parametric optimization dimensions that maintain peak turbine performance at all TSRs. Thus, a clear trend relating all the
CFD optimized casing dimensions to the TSR was established.
Savonius casing © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction half cylinders as depicted in Fig. 1, and is considered to be one of the

The pressure to find alternative reliable energy sources other
than fossil fuels is considerably mounting day by day [1e4], mainly
due to the huge impact that the burning of fossil fuels has on the
environment and people’s health [4,5]. A recent granular analysis
was conducted by Sommer [6], where it was concluded that the
increase in environmental temperature and precipitation was
hugely linked to the ignition of fossil fuels. Another major reason
why different energy sources have to be found is the potential risk
of running out of fossil fuels during the next couple of decades
[7e10]. Therefore, in order to minimize and hopefully avert the
detrimental consequences of depending on fossil fuels, huge
amount of research is being put on increasing the efficiency and
reliability of renewable energy resources, such as wind turbines
[11e17]. The Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine (HAWT) is the most
popular type of wind turbines for power production on a gross level
[18], but when it comes to certain applications, Vertical Axis Wind
Turbines (VAWTs) can be superior [19e24]. VAWTs are able to
operate in multidirectional wind flows in urban residential areas
[25,26], not to mention the ease of maintenance and simplicity of
their blade fabrication [27,28]. The Savonius VAWT consists of two
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: mkhoury@lau.edu.lb (M. Elkhoury).
simplest and cheapest type of VAWTs [29].
The characteristics of the Savonius VAWT encouraged re-
searchers to spend considerable effort to study and improve its
performance. Fujisawa [30] and Fujisawa and Gotoh [31] used a
smoke-wire visualization technique to visualize the flow over a
Savonius VAWT at various rotor overlap ratios. It was found that the
turbine best performed at a small overlap ratio of 0.15, with dete-
rioration in performance at larger ratios. Nowadays, with the
increasing availability and affordability of user-friendly Computa-
tional Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software, researchers are heavily
relying on these software to predict the performance characteris-
tics of VAWTs [32e35]. Most of the studies related to VAWTs are
based on 2-D numerical simulations, due to their relatively low
computational costs. In general, 3-D simulations yield the most
accurate results, but require substantial computational resources
[36e38]. Existence of secondary flow and tip effects is the main
reason why 3-D CFD is more accurate [11,20]. Hence, conclusions
drawn from 2-D numerical simulations can be deemed accurate
only when validated against 3-D results. Ferrari et al. [36] carried
out 2-D and 3-D numerical studies on a Savonius VAWT, and vali-
dated the results against experimental data. It was shown that 2-D
CFD results do not accurately replicate the characteristic perfor-
mance curves, as the curves’ peak locations were shifted compared
to the 3-D results, which were similar to the experimental data.
To assess the influence of inflow turbulence intensity on a small

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2018.12.092
0960-1481/© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
128 E. Antar, M. Elkhoury / Renewable Energy 136 (2019) 127e138

In the present study, a numerical parametric optimization pro-

cess is carried out in order to properly size the casing of a Savonius
VAWT at different TSRs for maximum power production. The
selected design is based on the findings of El-Askary et al. [29], who
claimed a superior performance compared to other published de-
signs. Thus, starting with this proposed baseline casing design, a
rigorous optimization process is carried out on a 2-D grid using the
SST keu turbulence model. Since this laborious optimization pro-
cess is performed at different TSRs, different optimal casing shapes
are expected to be generated. Therefore, the trend relating opti-
mized design parameters to TSR is thoroughly studied. 3-D nu-
merical simulations are crucial when it comes to results validation.
Hence, the 2-D optimized casing shapes are utilized to validate the
performance of the turbine by carrying out 3-D Delayed Detached
Eddy Simulation (DDES), which should yield more realistic results.
To the best of authors’ knowledge, this 3-D validation approach has
rarely been performed before, while utilizing a similar optimization
process involving Savonius VAWTs.

Fig. 1. Schematic showing a conventional Savonius VAWT, with identified advancing

and returning blades.
2. Methodology

Starting from the baseline casing design described next in sec-

Savonius VAWT, Wekesa et al. [38] carried out numerical simula- tion 2.1, geometrical design parameters were assigned, and were
tions with experimental validations. It was shown that the pres- optimized independently at a given TSR. The optimization process
ence of turbulence intensity increased the amount of kinetic energy was carried out after generating all the results pertaining to the
available for harvesting, but decreased the turbine’s efficiency after caseless turbine configuration shown in Fig. 1. A description of the
a certain threshold wind velocity. The effect of twist angle on the optimization process is delineated in section 2.2.
performance of a Savonius VAWT was studied by Lee et al. [39]. The In order to replicate the proposed design of El-Askary et al. [29],
torque and power coefficients were monitored for the same pro- the variables in blue of Fig. 2 were set as follows: Radius R1 of wall 1
jection areas and aspect ratios for four different helical angles of 0
, was set to a large value, hence behaving almost like a straight wall
45
, 90
, and 135
. It was observed that the maximum value of the inclined 15
to the horizontal with a length of 4R. Radii R2 and R3 of
power coefficient (Cp) occurred at a twist angle of 45
, with the wall 2 were set equal to 0.5R and 2.18R respectively, with a tangent
torque coefficient (CT) being almost invariant for twist angles constraint between wall 2-B and wall 2-C. Distances D1 and D2
greater than 90
. The effect of rotor height was also studied by were set to 0.5R and 0.671R, respectively. It is worth to note that D1
Ferrari et al. [36], where performance improvement was detected and D2 position the centers of arcs wall 2-C and wall 3-C, respec-
with increasing rotor height up to an asymptotic limit. Tian et al. tively. The latter position, D2, coincides with the center of arc wall
[40] improved the performance of a Savonius VAWT by generating 3-B when its radius equal to 1.5R. Rotor radius (R) was considered to
optimized blade shapes from semi ellipses, starting from the con- be 0.149 m, with a blade radius (Rb) of 0.08 m, and an overlap ratio
ventional semi-circular shaped blades. The relative increase in the (a/2R) of 0.15. Finally, the height (H) of the turbine was taken as
turbine’s performance was mainly attributed to the presence of 0.298 m, yielding a rotor diameter (D) to height ratio of one.
stronger tip vortices and flow recovery.
Previous studies showed that using guide plates or what is
called a turbine’s casing in the present study, invariably improves
the performance of Savonius VAWTs. Mohamed et al. [1] optimized
the position of a plate that shielded the returning blade, which in
turn, directed the flow into the advancing blade of the turbine. A
maximum increase of 27% in the relative power generated was
obtained with the optimized design compared to one with no
shielding plate. With the aim of eliminating negative torque and
increasing the momentum of incoming airflow, Altan et al. [28]
used experiments and numerical simulations to assess the perfor-
mance of a Savonius VAWT with curtains or two shielding plates. It
was shown that the turbine’s performance with curtains installed
was dramatically better compared to a caseless turbine. El-Askary
et al. [29] further improved the performance of a Savonius VAWT,
by using three guide plates. They compared three different casing
configurations by employing 2-D numerical simulations to mainly
control the wind flow and thus minimize negative generated tor-
que. It was observed that the utilization of a turbine’s casing has
primarily three roles: One being to direct the flow into the
advancing blade, the second is to shield the returning blade from
the incoming flow, and the third role is to channel the flow into
concave side of the returning blade. All of these measures yielded
Fig. 2. Full geometry of the turbine and casing, where dimensions in blue were varied
considerable improvement in the performance of the wind turbine. during optimization process.
 E. Antar, M. Elkhoury / Renewable Energy 136 (2019) 127e138
2.1. Parametric optimization process
To analyze the effect of different geometrical dimensions, and in
order to improve the performance of the turbine, unique design
variables were assigned to different casing dimensions, and were
allowed to vary independently. A sufficient five degree of freedom
system was generated, and set to be optimized for improved per-
formance. The dimensions in red of Fig. 2 were held constant. This
was necessary in order to ensure that all considered turbines had
similar shape features with a constant inlet flow rate.
The parametric optimization process was carried out as follows,
in the given order: First, radius R1 of wall 1 was varied with two
fixed ends having an effective end to end length of 4R, which was
sufficient in order to eliminate any entrance effects [29]. Wall 2 was
divided into three parts as seen in Fig. 2. The upper end of part A
was fixed, and a tangent constraint was set between parts B and C
for the smooth turning of incoming flow. Next, after obtaining the
best value of parameter R1, radius R2 of wall 2-B was allowed to
vary. As R2 was varied, a rigid body offset of wall 2-B took place as
depicted later on in Fig. 9-b. This describes how the optimal dis-
tance between walls 2 and 3 was obtained. Distance D1, which
positions the center of arc wall 2-C, was varied next. This would
change the inlet jet angle of wall 2-C alone, and is important to
consider especially when aiming at minimizing negative generated
torque. Radius R3 of wall 2-A was then varied, in order to determine
the optimal curvature of the arc. As depicted later on in Fig. 10,
different values of R3 were chosen, including one (R3 ¼ 0.26 m)
which makes both parts A and B tangent relative to each other.
Moving on to wall 3, which was also divided into three parts, only
the position of center of arc wall 3-C, distance D2, was studied, with
a tangent constraint set between parts B and C. It is worth to
mention that varying the dimensions of other parts relevant to wall
3, like the curvature of part A in a similar fashion to wall 1, did not
result in performance improvement irrespective of the curvature
shape. Throughout the optimization process, and starting from the
baseline geometrical dimensions, the values of the selected pa-
rameters were chosen in a way to produce small changes in the
dimensions of the casing, yet had considerable influence on the
performance of the turbine. At a given TSR, values of previously
optimized geometrical parameters were subsequently used when
optimizing following geometries.
3. 2-D Numerical simulations
In the present study, ANSYS Fluent, a commercial CFD software
was utilized to solve the governing flow equations. A transient
solver was employed with a sliding mesh capability that allows the
rotor domain to rotate, and hence, predict the turbine’s perfor-
mance over a period of time. Reference values were set in Fluent as
follows: Area D ¼ 0.298 m2, length R ¼ 0.149 m, depth ¼ 1 m,
U ¼ 6 m/s, r ¼ 1.225 kg/m3, m ¼ 1.7894  105 kg/m-s, and these
were utilized in the computation of performance coefficients
described below. A scaled residual of 1  103 was selected as the
convergence criterion for all flow variables, and a maximum of 20
iterations per time step was allowed. However, the solution readily
converged after the 8th iteration. The number of time steps was
entered in a way that the rotor would complete 10 revolutions,
while the averaging of the CT values starts after the elapse of the
first three revolutions, in order to ensure the diminishing of tran-
sient effects. This was sufficient, as more revolutions had no effect
on the averaged CT value.
3.1. Turbulence model
The choice of the turbulence model used in numerical
129
simulations is crucial when accurate results are desired.
Throughout the history of turbulence modeling, numerous models
were formulated and rigorously assessed against experimental
data. None of these models however, had universal traits of being
suitable to all flow applications. Even complex turbulence models
that rely on strong physical foundations fail to accurately predict
certain cases and yield unsatisfactory results [34]. The keε and keu
turbulence models, each utilizing two transport equations to
characterize turbulent flows, are the most widely used turbulence
closures for industrial applications. However, when it comes to
external aerodynamic flow simulations, such as flow over energy
harvesting turbines, the SST keu model prevails. After comparisons
with other turbulence models, particularly the Standard keε, RNG
keε, Realizable keε and SST keu, it was concluded that for 2-D
simulations, the SST keu model is the most suitable model for
predicting flow around a Savonius rotor turbine, as generated nu-
merical results were the closest to the measured experimental data
[5,36]. Hence, the SST keu turbulence model was adopted for the
present 2-D simulations.
3.2. Performance coefficients
The torque coefficient calculated from the aerodynamic forces
induced on both the advancing and returning blades was moni-
tored in Fluent, for performance comparison. The main objective in
the present study was to obtain specific casing dimensions capable
of generating maximum amount of power at a specific TSR (l), thus
maximizing the value of the power coefficient, defined as
Cp ¼ CT l (1)
4T
CT ¼ (2)
rU 2 D2 H
The total generated torque (T), is calculated by integrating the
total forces resulting from pressure ðFpressure
f
Þ and shear ðFshear
f Þ as
follows [5]:
X pressure

T¼ Ff þ Fshear
f $l
f
Xh   i
¼ pf  pref Af þ  tf $Af $l
ðconcaveÞ
f
h   i
 pf  pref Af þ  tf $Af $l (3)
ðconvexÞ
With pf and pref being the static and reference pressures,
respectively. Af is the face area on which pressure forces act and l is
the local torque arm about the rotational axis.
3.3. Computational domains and boundary conditions
To simulate the performance of the Savonius turbine, the whole
domain had to be partitioned into two parts, a wind tunnel and a
rotor fluid domain. The wind tunnel domain was stationary, con-
tained walls 1, 2, and 3, and engulfed the rotor domain. While the
rotor domain was set to rotate at the desired angular velocity
relative to its central geometrical axis, and contained the advancing
and returning blades. A sliding interface was also set between these
two domains as depicted in Fig. 3.
Rezaeiha et al. [37] studied the effect of domain size, and pro-
vided minimum sizing guidelines to be followed for accurate pre-
diction of VAWTs’ performance. The recommended dimensions
were all a function of the rotor radius, and did not account for a
casing. Hence, a domain with relatively larger dimensions had to be
130 E. Antar, M. Elkhoury / Renewable Energy 136 (2019) 127e138
Fig. 3. Schematic of the computational domain, with identified dimensions and
boundary conditions.
used in order to account for the turbine’s casing, given the large
wake regions that were generated downstream. According to
Rezaeiha et al. [37] the minimum distance from the inlet to the
turbine’s center should be at least 20R. In the present study, it was
set to 67R, since using a relatively smaller distance would result in
an overpredicted Cp value [37]. Moreover, it was suggested that a
minimum distance of 20R from the turbine’s center to the outlet
should be adopted. In the present work however, the outlet was set
at 134R from the center of the turbine. It was important to select a
sufficiently generous distance in order to allow full wake devel-
opment, as choosing a relatively smaller distance would result in an
underestimated Cp value [37]. Regarding the domain’s width (W), it
was suggested that the blockage ratio (D/W) should not exceed 5%.
The domain width was set at 200R, yielding a blockage ratio of
2.85%, where 5.7R (inlet flow distance) was used instead of 1R for
computing the blockage ratio.
An unstructured mesh with inflation layers near solid surfaces
was utilized. A growth rate of 1.2 was adopted for all walls in order
to ensure that complex flow structures were accurately captured.
Inflation layers were also created for all walls, with a first layer
thickness of 1  105 m, ensuring that yþ  1.0. Moreover, the
nodes between the fluid and rotor domains were closely mapped
by deploying a conformal mesh, and applying equivalent edge
sizing on both interfaces with a hard enforcing condition. This is
necessary to ensure smooth flow continuity through the interface
and between the two domains, which would otherwise adversely
affect the convergence of the solution [25]. The minimum mesh
orthogonal quality was greater than 0.14, while the maximum cell
skewness never exceeded 0.91. The mesh utilized in the simula-
tions, displaying the casing and the rotor is depicted in Fig. 4.
A uniform air velocity (U) of 6 m/s was set at the inlet, matching
the one used in the experiment [30]. A 5% turbulence intensity (I),
defined as I ¼ u’/V∞ (ratio of root mean square of turbulent velocity
fluctuations to the mean Reynolds averaged velocity) was set at the
inlet. A gauge pressure of 0 Pa was assigned to the outlet of the
Fig. 4. Far and zoomed views of the generated computational grid for a turbine with
casing.
computational domain. A non-slip condition was assigned to all
solid surfaces, and the advancing and returning blades were set as
rotating walls. A symmetry boundary condition was applied to the
upper and lower horizontal bounds of the computational domain.
3.4. Mesh and time step dependency studies
To ensure that the generated results were independent of the
mesh density and the magnitude of the time step, mesh and time
step dependency calculations had to be performed. Results were
deemed grid/time step independent when the difference in the
average Cp values was negligibly small between two consecutive
trials. As stated earlier, inflation layers were applied to all solid
surfaces in the computational domain to ensure that yþ  1. For
the same domain size, results were generated for a caseless turbine
configuration, first with 56,884 triangular elements followed by
90,478 elements (1.6 times denser). After eliminating transient ef-
fects, the difference between the average power coefficients was
less than 0.7%, a difference that may be confidently neglected.
Similarly, after decreasing the time step size from an equivalent
rotation of 1
e0.5
, the difference in the values of Cp was less than
0.8%. The same procedure was repeated for a turbine with a casing,
where a grid containing 332,768 triangular elements produced a
similar average Cp value when compared to a refined grid with
531,541 (1.6 times denser) elements. The Cp values were invariant
with just a 2% difference when comparing the fine and coarse mesh,
and with a 3% difference when comparing data from different time
steps sizes (1
and 0.5
). These differences were considered to be
negligible, and hence, further calculations were performed using
the 332,768 elements mesh with the time step size equivalent to 1

rotation.
4. 2-D Results and discussion
Due to the laborious optimization processes followed, where not
less than a total of 100 samples were simulated with different
casing dimensions, only 4 TSR values of 0.42, 0.59, 0.76, and 1.19 are
considered. Fig. 5 shows a plot of Cp vs l for different turbine
configurations including experimental results of the caseless rotor
by Fujisawa [30]. It can be clearly seen that the turbine’s
Fig. 5. Average power coefficient versus tip speed ratio for different turbine
configurations.
 E. Antar, M. Elkhoury / Renewable Energy 136 (2019) 127e138
Fig. 6. Instantaneous torque coefficient versus azimuth position for different turbine
configurations at TSR ¼ 0.76.
performance considerably improves with the optimized casing
design configuration, except at the lowest considered TSR of 0.42.
At higher TSRs of 0.59, 0.76, and 1.19, performance improves by 21%,
27%, and 15%, respectively, when comparing the optimized casing
and the caseless turbine configurations. At a TSR of 1.19, a
maximum performance improvement of 48% is attained when
comparing the optimized and baseline casing configurations.
Comparing the power coefficients of the 2-D caseless simulated
turbine and available experimental data, it can be clearly seen that
the turbine’s performance is always overestimated. As mentioned
earlier this discrepancy is mainly due to the complex 3-D flow
characteristics that are not accounted for in the 2-D simulations.
According to experimental data, there exists a peak in the value of
the power coefficient at a TSR of 1.0, after which the performance of
the turbine drops at higher TSR values. This is not replicated by the
results of the 2-D simulations, where the peak in power coefficient
occurs at a higher TSR value of 1.25. This shift in the 2-D Cp dis-
tribution curve agrees very well with the findings of Jin et al. [11].
Fig. 6 shows a plot of the instantaneous CT vs azimuth position
(q) for the caseless, baseline, and optimized turbine configurations
at a TSR of 0.76. A maximum power coefficient of 0.283 is attained
Fig. 7. Pressure (Pa) contours comparison for the a) caseless, b) baseline, and c) optimized design configurations, at TSR ¼ 0.76 and q ¼ 145
.
131
at this TSR. From this plot, it can be clearly seen that the peak torque
coefficient value is almost tripled when comparing the optimized
and the caseless design configurations. An improvement in the
turbine’s performance is attributed to an increase in the value of
the average torque coefficient over one rotor revolution. Although
at rotor angles of 50
e90
, and 235
e270
, the torque coefficient of
the caseless turbine configuration is slightly larger than that of the
optimized casing design, the torque coefficient of the latter is
substantially greater for all the other rotor positions. Moreover,
torque coefficient values of the optimized design are always larger
than those of the baseline design except for rotor angles between
170
and 200
. This constitutes just 8.3% of the time spent during
one rotor revolution. One of the main purposes of using a casing is
to minimize negative torque. As depicted in Fig. 6, the instanta-
neous torque about the turbine’s geometrical axis is always positive
for the optimized casing design, except for the dip that occurs be-
tween 185
and 191
. It is worth to mention that for the rest of the
sampled TSRs, the torque coefficient values of the optimized tur-
bine rarely drop to a negative value irrespective of rotor angle.
Torque is generated due to the difference in pressure on both
sides of the two blades. Hence, having a larger pressure difference
will result in a larger torque, and consequently, will lead to larger
power production. To further describe the fundamental reasons for
the improvement in performance, a comparison between the
pressure contours of the caseless, baseline, and optimized turbine
configurations at a TSR of 0.76 and rotor angle of 145
is shown in
Fig. 7. At this position, the instantaneous torque coefficient for each
of the caseless, baseline, and optimized turbine configurations is
0.36, 0.72, and 1.16, respectively (Fig. 6). It is clear from Fig. 7 that
the negative pressure area on the convex side of the advancing
blade of the optimized casing design drastically increases. More-
over, the positive pressure on the concave side of the same blade
also increases in magnitude. Hence, the overall pressure difference
is much greater, which in turn, is reflected in the large difference in
torque coefficients between the caseless and optimized designs. It
is also evident that this increase in torque due to the pressure
difference on the advancing blade outweighs the decrease in
pressure difference on the returning blade. A similar scenario can
be inferred when comparing the caseless and baseline casing de-
signs, where the latter has an increase in pressure difference on the
advancing blade, which is clearly smaller when compared to the
optimized casing designs.
The increase in CT value has been explained from a pressure
distribution viewpoint. Associated contours of velocity magnitude
are shown in Fig. 8 for the optimized and baseline turbine config-
urations, at a TSR of 0.76 and rotor angle of 145
. It is evident that
132 E. Antar, M. Elkhoury / Renewable Energy 136 (2019) 127e138

Fig. 8. Instantaneous velocity (m/s) magnitude contours for the optimized and baseline casing configurations at TSR ¼ 0.76 and q ¼ 145
.

the flow becomes quite complex when installing a casing around a
turbine. Strong asymmetric wake regions are noticed downstream
the turbine, an important point that should be thoroughly
considered when designing the layout of a wind farm. It is evident
from Fig. 8-a that stronger jet-like velocity effect is generated at the
tip of the advancing blade of the optimized casing design. This, in
turn, will result in a considerable decrease in pressure on the
convex side of the blade. Also, the wider stagnation zones of the
optimized design will invariably result in a larger pressure on the
concave side of both blades. These effects simultaneously
contribute to the increase in pressure difference, and consequently
torque generated.
4.1. Parametric results
Although a detailed description of the parametric optimization
sequence was given in section 2.2, a brief summary of the processes
is delineated below, and starts by varying the following parameters
in the given order:
a) Radius of wall 1 (R1).
b) Radius of wall2-B (R2).
c) Arc center distance (D1) of wall2-C.
d) Radius of wall2-A (R3).
e) Arc center distance (D2) of wall3-C.
The geometrical alterations in the casing’s geometry resulting
from the variation of the 5 geometrical design parameters, along
with their influence on power coefficient at various TSRs are
depicted in Fig. 9. Cp is normalized with Cpmax, which is the
maximum Cp value attained while studying a particular design
parameter at a given TSR. During the analysis of a particular design
parameter, a clear decaying trend was frequently obtained indi-
cating that no further geometrical alterations would result in per-
formance improvement. As a result, the parametric value that
yielded the maximum power coefficient was deemed optimum,
and adopted during the rest of the study.
The effect of varying each geometrical parameter on the tur-
bine’s performance is assessed in Fig. 9 (left). It is evident that with
increasing TSR, the value of R1 (curvature of wall 1) that results in
the peak Cp value increases, as depicted in Fig. 9-a. The peaks’ lo-
cations shift to right with increasing TSR, indicating that the
optimal curvature of wall 1 should eventually decrease. The Cp
value of the baseline casing with a very large value of R1 is not
shown in Fig. 9-a, as it is well below the minimum values that are
included. This demonstrates the importance of curving wall 1. The
offset effect resulting from the variation of parameter R2 and per-
formance data can be seen in Fig. 9-b. Again, the trend is clear as the
optimal value of R2 keep increasing with increasing TSR. Hence, it
can be concluded that the optimal relative distance between wall 2
and wall 3 decreases with increasing TSR. It was important to study
the effect of the generated jet’s angle caused by walls 2 and 3, and
this was accomplished by varying independently the arc center
distances D1 and D2 of wall 2-C and wall 3-C, respectively, as
depicted in Fig. 9. The optimal value of D1 keeps on increasing with
increasing TSR then eventually drops at a TSR of 1.19. No broad
conclusions could be made without considering parameter D2 of
wall3, but before that, it is worth to discuss the effect of varying
radius R3 of wall2-A. As depicted in Fig. 9-c, the baseline value of
R3 ¼ 0.33 m is consistently the best, with an exception at a TSR of
0.76, where the Cp value just drops by 0.7%. Hence, it can be
confidently concluded that the curvature of wall2-A is independent
of the TSR, and should be kept constant at a value of 0.33 m (2.21R).
This is not surprising as R3 only determines the curvature of wall2-
A given that the airflow has to be further turned before impinging
on the rotating blades. Finally, the last parameter D2, was varied as
shown in Fig. 9-e. It is clear that with increasing TSR, the optimal
value of D2 decreases reaching a minimum value of 0.03 m at a TSR
of 1.19. Besides distance D1, D2 is also related to the generated jet
angle of the returning blade described next.
After the aforementioned description, comparing the overall
casing shapes, a clear trend is evident with TSR as summarized in
Fig. 10. It can be confidently concluded that with increasing TSR:
1) Curvature of wall 1 decreases.
2) Relative distance between walls 2 and 3 decreases.
3) Curvature of wall 2-A is unchanged.
4) Width of the returning blade jet decreases.
5) Returning blade jet angle decreases.
The width of the returning blade jet at the lowest TSR of 0.42 is
the greatest, where the increase in flow momentum is not that
evident relative to higher TSR values. In fact, the Cp value attained
after optimization at this TSR is exceptionally never greater than
that of the caseless turbine configuration as depicted in Fig. 5. 2-D
CFD shows that the casing is not able to serve its purpose, and
deteriorates the turbines performances at relatively lower TSRs. At
higher TSRs, the width of the generated jet (by walls 2 and 3) de-
creases, which results in an increase in flow momentum or absolute
velocity. This consistency is followed by the fact that the jet angle
also decreases with increasing TSR, which may be attributed to
maintaining an optimal returning blade angle of attack, just as it is
the case with the twisted blades of a HAWT.
5. 3-D Numerical simulations
In order to validate the 2-D optimization process of the casing,
3-D simulations, which are considered substantially more accurate,
were performed. Reference values in Fluent were set as follows:
Area D  H ¼ 0.088804 m2, length R ¼ 0.149 m, U ¼ 6 m/s,
Fig. 9. Geometrical alterations resulting from the variations of a particular design parameter (left), and the resulting performance plots (right).
134 E. Antar, M. Elkhoury / Renewable Energy 136 (2019) 127e138
Fig. 10. Comparison of the optimized casing shapes for sampled TSRs.
r ¼ 1.225 kg/m3, m ¼ 1.7894  105 kg/m-s. These values were also
used in the computations of performance coefficients. The values of
the turbine’s torque coefficient were monitored during the entire
flow time. The convergence criteria for all the scaled flow variables
was set to 1  103, with a maximum of 20 allowable iterations per
time step. It should be noted, however, that on the average, the
solution converged after the 5th iteration only. In order to eliminate
transient effects, averaging started only when the difference in the
averaged Cp values between two consecutive rotor revolutions was
minimal (<1%).
5.1. Turbulence model
Delayed Detached Eddy Simulation (DDES) based on the Spalart
Allmaras (SA) turbulence model [41] was utilized in the present 3-D
simulations. The underlying SA model has been widely validated
for the simulation of external aerodynamic flows, rendering it an
excellent choice for the current simulation. In addition, this
approach was adopted for it is computationally cheaper than Large
Fig. 11. Schematic showing the computational domain (left) and the zoomed casing geometry (right).
Eddy Simulation. The DDES method relies on RANS, in this case, the
SA turbulence model, to account for near-wall turbulence, and re-
verts to LES mode away from the wall. This is accomplished by
modifying the destruction term in the SA eddy transport equation.
The switching between the RANS and LES mode depends on a
shielding function as delineated by Spalart et al. [41].
5.2. Computational domains and boundary conditions
The computational domain was partitioned into two zones, a
wind tunnel zone and a rotor zone. This was necessary in order to
set the rotor zone that contained the advancing and returning
blades, along with the walls of the end plates, to rotate as depicted
in Fig. 11.
The wind tunnel domain engulfed the rotor domain, and con-
tained the casing with the optimized dimensions generated from
the previously discussed 2-D simulations. A sliding interface was
set between the adjacent domains.
Following the previously mentioned minimum guidelines rec-
ommended by Rezaeiha et al. [37] regarding the sizing of the
computational domain, the distance from the inlet to the center of
the rotor was set at 40R as shown in Fig. 11. The Distance between
the turbine center and outlet was set at 80R, and in order to avoid
blockage the domain’s width and height were set at 134R and 47R,
respectively. Again, the importance of using a relatively large
domain and its influence on the accuracy of the numerical simu-
lations, where the wake generated is allowed to fully develop and
blockage effect is mitigated, should not be underestimated.
An unstructured tetrahedral mesh was generated with relevant
edge and face sizing set for all walls in order to ensure that complex
flow structures are accurately captured, and to maintain decent cell
orthogonal quality and aspect ratio. Inflation layers were created on
all solid surfaces with a first layer thickness of 3  105 m, ensuring
a yþ value of less than 1.0. In addition, face sizing was set on both
interfaces in order to ensure that the two domains were conformal.
This, in turn, ensures that the flow is continuous through both
domains as discussed previously. Fig. 12 shows different cross
sections through the computational grid, with the inflation layers
clearly identified.
The boundary conditions set in Fluent were identical to those set
in the 2-D simulations (Sec. 3.3). In particular, the inlet air velocity
(U) was set to 6 m/s, with a turbulence intensity of 5%, and an outlet
gauge pressure of 0 Pa. A non-slip condition was assigned to all
solid surfaces, while allowing the walls that are part of the rotor
zone to rotate relative to the outer stationary wind tunnel domain.
 E. Antar, M. Elkhoury / Renewable Energy 136 (2019) 127e138 135

Fig. 12. Overview of the computational grid with the inflation layers clearly identified.

5.3. Mesh and time step dependency studies

To ensure that all numerical simulations were mesh and time

step size independent, the density of the mesh and time step size
were refined. This step was followed by a comparison of the results
predicted on both meshes and time steps. For the regular caseless
turbine, a mesh with 7,563,404 tetrahedral elements was refined to
10,755,097. The difference in the average Cp values was found to be
less than 0.77%. After ensuring grid independence, the time step
size was decreased from a value that resulted in a step of 1
to a
value with half the amount (0.5
). Again, the difference in the
averaged Cp values was less than 0.03%. Hence, the coarse mesh
was adopted along with the larger time step size.

6. 3-D Results and discussion

Average power coefficients for the 3-D simulated regular and

optimized configurations are plotted for different TSRs, and against
experimental data [30] as shown in Fig. 13. It is evident that the
optimized turbine with a casing consistently performs much better
than the caseless rotor. A maximum Cp value of 0.22 is noted at a
TSR of 0.59, with an improvement of 42.5% in performance. Such a
big improvement in relative performance can also be noticed at a
lower TSR of 0.42 with an increase of 41.3%. At higher TSRs, the
relative increase in the value of Cp is not as large, yet over the entire
range of simulated TSRs, the minimum increase in Cp is 8.3%,
occurring at TSR ¼ 0.76. Hence, it can be noted that a turbine’s
casing will not only result in considerably high power generation,
but will also help maintain acceptable turbine performance over a
range of off-peak TSRs. The maximum optimized Cp value is 0.283,
and occurred at a TSR of 0.76 for the 2-D test case. On the contrary,
the maximum Cp value and peak location are different as seen from
the 3-D results. This further illustrates the importance of 3-D val-
idations, where the third dimension that has a substantial effect on
the predicted results is accounted for. Performing 3-D simulations
will also help ensure accurate predictions that emulate the actual
physical situation, where it can be seen from Fig. 13 that the 3-D
results are almost perfectly correlated with experimental data.
Again, this was not the case with 2-D results, as this characteristic
curve was not replicated.
The torque coefficient over one rotor revolution at TSR of 0.59, is
plotted in Fig. 14, for the optimized and caseless turbine
Fig. 13. Average power coefficient versus tip speed ratio showing 3-D simulated and
experimental results.
configurations. The CT values for the optimized turbine are sub-
stantially larger than those of the caseless turbine over the rotor
positions of 90
e180
, and 270
e340
, with a peak of 0.75 at rotor
position of 320
. The optimized CT distribution continues to
outperform that of the caseless turbine over the rest of the rotor
revolution, with a slight drop taking place over rotor positions
1
e30
, and 190
e210
. This drop in performance constitutes only
about 14% of the time spent by the rotor during one revolution.
6.1. Pressure and velocity contours
As discussed earlier, generated torque increases with an in-
crease in pressure difference between the concave and convex sides
of both rotating blades, which is mathematically represented by
Eqn. (3). Fig. 15 shows surface blade pressure contours of both the
caseless and optimized turbines at a TSR of 0.59, and rotor position
of 140
(Note that a) and b) are two opposite perspectives of the 3-D
136 E. Antar, M. Elkhoury / Renewable Energy 136 (2019) 127e138
Fig. 14. 3-D simulated torque coefficient versus rotor position for the caseless and
optimized turbine configurations.
turbine at the same rotor position). It can be clearly seen that there
is a considerable increase in the negative pressure area on the
convex side of both the advancing and returning blades when
comparing the optimized to the caseless rotor. This negative pres-
sure is the main reason behind the elevated CT values of the opti-
mized turbine as shown before in Fig. 14.
Instantaneous velocity contours at a TSR of 0.59 on a plane that
cuts midway through the optimized turbine’s height are depicted in
Fig. 16. The stagnant flow on the concave sides of both blades re-
sults in generating positive pressure, and consequently increases
the torque. In addition, the considerable pressure drop on the
blade’s convex surface (Fig. 15) is thought to be, to a large extent,
due to jet-like effect formed on the advancing blade. This, in turn,
results in a substantial pressure difference between both sides of
the blade, constituting the main drive behind the large CT value of
0.75 at q ¼ 140
as depicted in Fig. 14. The 3-D contours indicate
weaker generated wake regions relative to the previously discussed
2-D results. In addition, all 3-D velocity contours show fewer
Fig. 15. Surface blade pressure (Pa) contours of the caseless and optimized turbine configurations from opposing perspectives a) and b), at a TSR ¼ 0.59 and q ¼ 140
.
Fig. 16. Instantaneous velocity (m/s) magnitude contours at a cross section midway
through the optimized turbine’s height (left), and velocity (m/s) vector plots showing
flow escaping vertically, at TSR ¼ 0.59 and q ¼ 140
.
stagnation regions, and this is due to the third out-of-plane motion
where the flow is readily able to escape vertically from the casing
(Fig. 16 right), mitigating the pressure differential effect. This was
not the case with the 2-D optimized simulations, where tip effects
and flow leakage were not present, and thus, resulted in an over-
estimated prediction of the turbine’s performance.
7. Conclusions
The parametric optimization process that was followed in order
to size a Savonius turbine’s casing at different TSRs was successfully
completed. More than one hundred 2-D samples were simulated at
4 different TSRs, and optimal values for the assigned five casing
parametric dimensions were obtained, starting from a suggested
baseline design. The main findings may be summarized as follows:
a) For the 2-D simulations, the optimized design considerably
performed better than the caseless turbine. A maximum
relative increase of 27% in the Cp value occurred at a TSR of
0.76. At a higher TSR of 1.19, a maximum of 48% was the
relative increase in performance when comparing the opti-
mized to the baseline designs.
b) The casing geometry that resulted in the optimal turbine
performance varied according to TSR value. A clear trend was
obtained relating several casing dimensions and TSR. The
optimal shapes of the casing had the following trend with
increasing TSR: Curvature of wall 1 (R1) decreased, relative
distance between walls 2 and 3 decreased, curvature of wall
 E. Antar, M. Elkhoury / Renewable Energy 136 (2019) 127e138
2-A did not change, width of the returning blade jet
decreased, and the returning blade jet angle decreased.
c) Due to the limitations of the 2-D simulations, and given the
complexity of the problem, 3-D simulations were carried out
in order to validate the generated 2-D results. DDES based on
the SA model was capable of predicting Cp values that very
closely matched experimental data. Optimal casing di-
mensions based on the 2-D simulations were utilized on a 3-
D model, where the optimized turbine performed much
better at all TSRs relative to a caseless turbine operating at
the same TSR. A maximum increase of 42.5% in Cp occurred
at a TSR of 0.59. Based on the results of the 3-D simulations, it
can be confidently concluded that the casing served its
purpose of improving the turbine’s performance, especially
in the off-peak TSR range.
d) 2-D numerical simulations did not show accuracy in repli-
cating the actual performance of the turbine, where pro-
duced results overestimated experimental data.
Nevertheless, 2-D CFD serves as a feasible alternative to
avoid 3-D tedious and costly parametric optimization pro-
cesses. Results of 3-D numerical simulations of the caseless
rotor were found to perfectly correlate with experimental
data. Hence, as a future perspective, this laborious optimi-
zation process can be carried out starting from a 3-D baseline
design, where important phenomena such as tip effects and
out of plane flow are accounted for.
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