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ICaTAS 2021 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2128 (2021) 012033 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2128/1/012033

Aeroacoustics behavioral study of Savonius wind turbine

Maymouna Malainine1,2, Amany Khaled1 and Sameh M Shabaan1

1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Arab Academy for Science, Technology, and
Maritime Transport, Cairo, Egypt
2
E-mail: Maymouna.malainine@gmail.com

Abstract. Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTs) are appropriate for use in populated areas. If
VAWTs were installed at residential areas, the generated aerodynamic noise can be harmful in
a way or another. Therefore, in the present study, the aero-acoustics of the conventional Savonius
Wind turbine was investigated using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Both the Unsteady
Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) equations and impermeable Ffowcs Wiliams and
Hawkings (FW-H) equation were simultaneously solved. The effect of speed ratio was also
studied. The results indicate that; the pressure is inversely proportional to the speed ratio.
Additionally, the velocity has been increased due to the increase of the tip speed ratio. Finally,
it has improved that for the majority of receivers, the overall sound level increases with
increasing speed ratio.

1. Introduction
In recent years, the world has become more concerned about the danger of excessive exploitation of
fossil fuels, which has prompted several countries to direct their interest in renewable energy. Wind
energy is one of the most promising renewable energy sources due to its cleanliness, profitability and
availability worldwide. Wind turbines can be used to produce mechanical power from the wind energy.
Wind turbines can be classified into Horizontal-axis wind turbines (HAWTs) and Vertical-axis wind
turbines (VAWTs). VAWTs have several advantages in comparison with HAWTs. In effect, for their
operation, there is no necessity for redirecting the rotor towards the wind direction, the VAWT starts to
generate power from very low speeds, and performance peaks at low tip speed ratio λ, following the
relation,
Rω
λ= V
(1).

VAWT can be differentiated into two types Lift (Darrieus) and drag (Savonius). The Savonius wind
turbines (SWTs) have lower cut-in wind speeds than Darrieus wind turbines and they can be used as
standalone wind turbine. For these reasons, the SWTs study is adopted in this current study. According
to the available literature about wind turbine, several researchers have opted for optimizing parameters
of the SWTs, this optimization studies were accomplished by either modifying the blade geometry or
the wind generator design, augmenting the number of the blade or adding a deflector system to guide
the wind towards the turbine blades. For instance, Mahrous et.al. (1) studied a new design of a VAWT
that combined both configurations of Savonius and Darrieus straight blades using a computational
model. In the two-blade conventional wind turbine (Savonius), Hassanzadeh in (2)compared four
different blade profiles. The blade diameter ratios at the blade depth of s/d = 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, and 1 were
measured at varying free wind speeds of 3, 5, and 7 m/s, and the TSR scale of 0.2 to 1.2. Rotor with s/d
= 0.5 had the maximum coefficients of power at all wind free speeds and TSR values. To estimate the
most powerful configuration, Meziane et.al in (3)contrasted aerodynamic and efficiency features of four
separate wind turbine geometries (two conventional, two-modified rotors). It was found that Savonius
is more powerful than the other two-bladed semi-circular rotor. A. Pallotta et al. (4)carried out a new
blade design combining between Savonius and Darrieus designs with the aim of optimizing performance
at medium and low wind speeds. Performances increased to reach an increment around 40% for wind

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ICaTAS 2021 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2128 (2021) 012033 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2128/1/012033

speed ratio λ ≈ 0.7. Saad et al. (5)numerically investigated the effect of different geometrical parameter
on the Savonius wind turbine performance. A twist angle of 45, overlapping ratio of 0 and end plates
size of 1.1 at wind speed of 6m/s resulted in maximum power coefficient of 0.223 with more increase
of wind speed of 10m/s, power coefficient attains 0.231. Alom and Saha in (6)carried out a numerical
and experimental study of certain blade profiles to assess their performance in order to validate the
numerical results. The numerical simulation of the semi-circular, Banish, modified Bach and elliptical
profiles resulted in power coefficient Cp of 0.272, 0.294, 0.304 and 0.34, respectively, while
experimental results yielded maximum Cp of 0.158, 0.159, 0.162, and 0.19, respectively. Etemadeasl et
al. (7)adopted a new configuration made up of two counter rotation Savonius rotor and V-shaped shield.
Influence of the V-shaped shield angle and distance from the rotors on the performance are investigated
numerically. The results demonstrated that a design with shield angle of 90 and shield distance of L=1D
raised the power coefficient by 80%.
In designing wind generators, Babu (8)used the powerful Neodymium magnets N52 to explain the
full output. There have been evidence of improving power generation using two magnet stators and a
coil rotor. Masdari (9)presented a numerical optimization procedure generated by coupling three codes
the Discrete Vortex Method (DVM), the Class Shape Transfer (CST) and the Salp Swarm algorithm
(SSA). Therefore, the optimized geometry obtained lead to an increase in power coefficient up to 27%.
Zemamou et al. (10)optimized the blade design of a Savonius turbine by using Bezier curves and
transient computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. Therefore, power coefficient reached its
maximum value at 0.35, which is 29% higher than that of the conventional Savonius wind turbine.
Didane et al. (11)used a computational simulation approach to analyse the simulation and performance
studies of a counter-rotating Vertical axis based on the Savonius S-type rotor. The power coefficient of
the counter-rotating rotor wind turbine has exceeded twice that of the single rotor wind turbine. In order
to increase rotor performance, Siregar et al. (12)studied a swirling savonius rotor omnidirectional guide
valve (ODGV). Findings demonstrate that ODGV with 12 blades on generated the biggest impact on
the rotor performance in Re = 93269 can increase Cp 15 % more than a swirling savonius. Matsui et al.
(13)theoretically investigated the effect of adding sub-buckets in the newly developed Savonius rotor
on the power coefficient. The latter was raised by 50.7% compared to the traditional rotor and 16.9%
compared to the Bach-type rotor. Marinic-Kargic et al. (14)carried out an overall numerical optimization
of the pair of Savonius blades where each pair is made up of two circular arc. The power coefficient was
high by 39% relative to the classical one. Layeghmand et al. (15)have suggested a new deflector system
for optimizing the productivity of savonic wind turbines. The conclusion reached adopted that with the
advantageous airfoil deflector the static torque coefficient values in all rotation ranges were considerably
increased, especially in rotation angles from 0°–30° to 150°–180°. Guo et al. (16) adapted a positioning
system to maintain the deflector in the appropriate position and retain the cost-effectiveness of Savonius.
The influence of the deflector was investigated by numerical and experimental methods and was found
less than 3% when the placement is greater than the optimal value 0.82 times diameter. Nimvari et al.
(17)suggested a novel porous deflector set in front of the Savonius wind turbine to enhance the
performance. The maximum values in terms of torque and power coefficient have been increased by
10% and by 2 times respectively thanks to the optimization of the porosity of the deflector.
Little work has highlighted the acoustics of Savonius wind turbine. Kim in (18) typified the
aerodynamic noise of Savonius wind turbine and suggested low noise designs. The S-shaped blades
used decreased the noise levels by up to 2.7 db. Since research lacks the study of the aeroacoustics of
Savonius wind turbine, this work concentrates on the study of the concept of aerodynamic noise. The
aim of this work is to deeply investigate and understand the aero-acoustics of Savonius wind turbine for
purpose of optimization in the future work.

2. The Numerical Model and its validation

The geometry adopted for the turbine in this study is that of a conventional Savonius wind turbine
made up of two semi-circular blades. Figure 1 demonstrated the turbine geometry where the diameter is
d, the rotor overlap is S and rotor diameter is D. Further dimensional aspects are all listed in Table 1.

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ICaTAS 2021 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2128 (2021) 012033 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2128/1/012033

Figure 1 Geometry of a conventional Savonius wind turbine

Table 1 Dimensions in details of the conventional Savonius wind turbine
Parameters Dimensions (m)
rotor diameter (D) 0.21
Turbine diameter (d) 0.1155
Height (H) 0.23
Blade thickness 0.00063
Blade overlap distance (S) 0.097
Blade gap 0.021
For the simulation study, a computational domain must be defined. Therefore, the
computational domain used for the current study and its boundary conditions are all illustrated in
Error! Reference source not found.. The extended domain is kept wide enough to avoid the
confinement effects on the turbine performance. The domain consists of two subdomains, an inner
circular domain surrounded by a rectangular outer one. The inner subdomain contains the turbine model.
The outer diameter (D = 0.21 m) and blade thickness (tb = 0.00063 m) of the turbine model are same
values as those used in the wind tunnel experiments of Roy and Saha in (19)The diameter of
the round sub-domain is 1.1 bigger than the turbine diameter. A uniform speed of 7.8 m/s is set at the
inlet, which corresponds to a Reynolds number Re = 1.23 × 10⁵. An averaged constant pressure of zero
Pa is set at the outlet which is logic compared to the big size of the domain. The blade surfaces are
defined as no-slip wall boundary condition. The round region in the middle is considered a rotating
zone. Therefore, it is designed as a sliding mesh and connected to the constant outer
rectangular vicinity by an interface. The pinnacle and bottom extremities of the area are assigned as
symmetry boundary stipulations (u*n=0) where u is the local velocity and n surface normal. This
boundary situation is set a long way enough from the blades to reproduce efficiently the experimental
lateral flow, where no vertical wall and consequently no confinement were set.
The mesh generation was established by discretizing the computational area with unstructured
polyhedral mesh as shown in Figure 3A, excluding the boundary layer region, where a structured
mesh location is set as shown in Figure 3B. The blade structure format and the mesh generation process
was successfully implemented. In mesh generation process, a finely structured grid is generated on the
blade surfaces with a complete thickness of 1.1% of D and wall normal growth rate of 0.095 to obtain a
normalized wall distance y < 1 for the duration of the simulation of the flow site with the regular wind
velocity. Furthermore, vast effort was employed to provide a second level of mesh refinement in
the surroundings of turbine blades (inner circular region) to carefully seize the flow inside the
rotational radius of the turbine and the place where the inception of vortex shedding happens. All
numerical simulations were implemented using the commercial software ANSYS-FLUENT. The
air was regarded as incompressible due to the low Mach range of the VAWTs. The URANS
equations have been resolved using the SIMPLE algorithms for the pressure-velocity coupling. The
SST-k-w model was once used to perform the turbulence. The finite extent technique was

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ICaTAS 2021 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2128 (2021) 012033 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2128/1/012033

once applied for the discretization with a second-order upwind scheme for all parameters; nevertheless,
the pressure was discretized using a fashionable scheme.

Figure 2 Illustration of the computational domain and the boundary conditions applied

No Slip condition at the blade Rotating Circular zone

Figure 3 Details of the designed mesh for the chosen turbine.

A) The generalized mesh B) The structured mesh at boundaries

2.1. The grid independence test

The near wall treatment of the current aerodynamic investigation was identical to the one
validated towards the experimental information of Roy and Saha in (19). Mesh
independency was tested at a rotor speed ratio λ =0.6. As demonstrated in Figure 4, this test has shown
that the variance of the turbine power coefficients Cp with the cell numbers is no longer significant for
mesh size more than 98548 cells where ∆Cp=0.3% . Therefore, this mesh quantity was adopted in the
course of the aerodynamic simulation of the turbine.

0.235
Power cofficient Cp [-]

0.23
0.225
0.22
0.215
0.21
0.205
0.2
75646 86486 98548 109968 121946 135356 150346 166448 185170
Mesh size [Cell]

Figure 4 Results of mesh independence test at λ = 0.6

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ICaTAS 2021 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2128 (2021) 012033 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2128/1/012033

2.2. Step time independence test

The step time independence test was also carried out by steadily reducing the time step of the
calculations. Time steps corresponding to rotor rotations of 1°- 40° /time step were investigated at a
rotor tip speed ratio TSR = 0.6. As shown in Figure 5, these investigations show that there is
no extensive variation of the turbine power coefficient at a rotation greater than 1.0°/time step.
Therefore, a rotor rotation of 1.0°/time step was used in the proposed work.

0.25

Power coefficient Cp [-]

0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
1 10 20 30 40
Degrees per time step [°]

Figure 5 Step time independence test results

2.3. Model Validation

Validation of the turbulence model is the second step in the simulation after the grid independence
test has been completed. An aerodynamic analysis and estimate of the Cp power coefficient between the
current model and a reported experimental research by Roy and Saha is seen in Figure 6. According to
this quantitative and qualitative analysis, it can be onserved that there was a good, reasonable, and
significant correlation between the existing CFD calculations and the experimental research in
Reference (19) in the calculation of the power output coefficient.
The SST-k-w turbulence model was used in the current CFD work with the assistance of the standard
wall function. Through this analogy, it is obvious that the existing CFD model is an effective technique
for forecasting and simulating the behavior of the wind turbine up to λ=0.8 after that the model performs
poorly for a much more complex flow involving deep separations.

Present simulation
0.3
Experimental results
0.25

0.2
Cp

0.15

0.1

0.05

0
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
λ

Figure 6 Validation mapping of Cp and λ between simulated results (Present work) and
experimental results from previous literature in (19)
3. The Acoustic Model
A significant drawback of advanced wind turbines is the aerodynamic acoustics. A wind turbine blades
aerodynamic noise results from complicated and reciprocal interacting mechanisms that occur while the
air flows over the turbine blade's profile. Boundary layers are nearly chaotic over the whole blade surface
at large values of Reynolds number. In this case, noise is generated when the blade trailing edge is left
behind by this turbulence. Those boundary layers' instabilities induce vortex shedding and trailing edge

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ICaTAS 2021 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2128 (2021) 012033 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2128/1/012033

disruption. In fact, the flow separation may occur along the side of the blade suction along the trailing
edge. This isolation of the fluid results in a chaotic shedding of the vorticity and therefore trailing edge
noise. There are other aerodynamic noise sources that include the formation of peak vortices near the
tips of the blades (20) (21)In the estimation of blade aerodynamic noise, technical concepts are generally
incorporated. Empirical components are also used to achieve better consent with real observations,
however. After completing the Savonius turbine aerodynamic simulation, the hybrid approach was
applied to approximate the noise production and the propagation of the sound wave into the far area.
The ANSYS-FLUENT multiplicative solution of the Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings (FW-H)
impermeable equation was used to measure the aero-acoustics of the turbine. By evaluating the surface
integrals (22), the program implements a time domain integral formulation to measure the noise signal
at given receiver position. The 2D time-dependent flow properties were obtained using the URANS
solution. The sound signals were analyzed from the ANSYS-FLUENT FW-H equation. Such signals
may be represented using the Strong Fourier Transform (FFT) to translate between the frequency
domains from time to time. Sound Pressure Level (SPL) was also mapped. Such maps include
descriptions of the noise produced from the regular Savonius turbine, as well as the overall sound level
at various tip speed ratios.
The main parameter for the noise propagation is the wind turbine surrounding landscape. Noise
distribution may be calculated using either simple or complex numerical equations. The simplest
calculations presume hemispheric pattern while the complicated calculations take into account both the
surface topography and the wind characteristics. Predicting VAWT 's aerodynamic noise includes being
aware of its sound propagation by the atmosphere. Any determining factors were less known among the
numerous factors affecting sound propagation. These considerations include the distance of various
types of vibration, the ambient properties such as air absorption and refraction and the features of the
landscape. The present research incorporates sound receivers in a separate fixed location to collect all
sound waves, whether or not they are hemispheric. Figure 7 reflects the locations of nine sound detectors
to overlay the propagation of waves and capture signals instantaneously during measurements.

Figure 7 Illustration of Receivers positioning (black spots) numbered from 1 to 9 showing the wind
direction, pressure and sound waves propagation direction

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ICaTAS 2021 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2128 (2021) 012033 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2128/1/012033

4. Results and discussions

After simulating the aero-acoustic behaviour of the turbine under investigation results were captured
as OASL Vs TSR for further analysis. Error! Reference source not found. shows the values of OASL
for different receivers at different horizontal distance. Error! Reference source not found.A shows the
OASL values for receivers at the closest distance to the turbine body. Accordingly, these receivers show
highest values of OASL compared to other receivers at horizontal distance 2D and 4D. Further analysis
can be investigated by mapping OASL values to pressure contours corresponding to TSR values and the
receiver’s positions. Figure 9 shows a sample of pressure contours generated from the CFD model.
While mapping the three receiver positions and investigating the values of OASL Vs the TSR as
shown in Error! Reference source not found. in A, B and C, it is quite clear that highest sound levels
are measured at low speeds. In addition, as the horizontal distance increase, the amplitude of sound
decreases. Therefore, lowest OASL values are always measured at receivers 3,6,9 compared to other
receivers at different TSR values. Receivers 1,4,7 always have the highest values of OASL due to the
low speeds compared to other receivers at different TSR values.

Figure 8 TSR Vs OSAL at different horizontal distances while maintaining vertical step distance of
2D A) Receivers with horizontal distance 3D and vertical step 2D between each. B) Receivers with
horizontal distance 6D and vertical step 2D between

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ICaTAS 2021 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2128 (2021) 012033 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2128/1/012033

Figure 9 Sample Pressure contours for the turbine under investigation such that A) TSR = 0.2 and
B) TSR = 0.6

5. Conclusion
This work has investigated the aero-acoustic behaviour of a Savonius wind turbine. The model was
initially validated under steady state conditions. TSR of 0.6 was chosen as an operating point according
to the validation results. An acoustic model was successfully built and simulated. Analysis of the whole
system was performed at different TSR. At TSR = 0.6, highest deviation value was for receivers 4,5,6.
The OASL value was reduced by an approximate value 10% at a horizontal distance 6D while it was
reduced by an approximate value of 14%. The pressure contours give more tangible emphasis about the
behavior of the OASL Vs the TSR for all cases. This work has investigated the aero-acoustics of
Savonius wind turbine for purpose of optimization in the future work.
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