Renewable Energy 164 (2021) 272e284

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

Fluid structure interaction analysis of the operating Savonius wind

turbine
Łukasz Marzec *, Zbigniew Bulin

ski , Tomasz Krysin

ski
Silesian University of Technology, Institute of Thermal Technology, Gliwice, Poland

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

Article history: In the last few decades vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) have gained increased interest among re-
Received 2 December 2019 searchers worldwide. This paper aims to present full two-way Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI) approach
Received in revised form to model operation of the Savonius-type VAWT. The developed methodology couples the set of Unsteady
17 August 2020
Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes Equations (URANS) with the unsteady linear elasticity equations and
Accepted 28 August 2020
dynamic mesh approach to comprehensively describe the deformations of the turbine rotor. The ob-
Available online 6 September 2020
tained results provide detailed information on the unsteady flow fields around the operating wind
turbine as well as deformations of a turbine rotor caused by an interaction between solid and flowing air.
Keywords:
Fluid structure interaction
This allowed us to determine the influence of the unsteady deformations of a turbine rotor on the
Computational fluid dynamics instantaneous and average performance of a wind turbine. Computations were carried out for the wind
Finite element method speed equal to 15 m/s and the tip speed ratio equal to 0.8. The simulations were performed using the
Savonius wind turbine commercial ANSYS software. The obtained results showed that deformation of the turbine rotor increases
Vertical axis wind turbine the wind turbine power coefficient by around 5%. Moreover, it was shown that the centrifugal force has a
significant effect on the rotor deformation and turbine operation, hence it cannot be neglected.
© 2020 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction
Despite the fact that trends in wind turbine industry are heading
to large scale onshore and offshore turbines, potential of small scale
wind turbines is significant. Especially the vertical axis wind tur-
bines (VAWTs) are considered as a promising way in research
worldwide due to many undeniable advantages over horizontal
axis wind turbines (HAWTs). The lower noise emission of VAWTs,
higher cut off wind speed, lower minimal operational wind speed,
low susceptibility to the turbulence level of the wind, omnidir-
ectionality and more compact construction, make them especially
suitable for household applications. However, the VAWT con-
structions posses also drawbacks when compared to HAWTs,
mainly the lower efficiency and issues arising due to material
strength. An example of a typical VAWT is the Savonius Wind
turbine, which is considered a drag-based wind turbine. It was
invented by Finnish engineer Sigurd Johannes Savonius in 1922 [1].
The Savonius wind turbine is characterized by the S-shaped rotor,
consisting of two semicylidrical blades.
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: lukasz.marzec@polsl.pl (Ł. Marzec), zbigniew.bulinski@polsl.

ski), tomasz.krysinski@polsl.pl (T. Krysin
pl (Z. Bulin
ski).
It is widely believed that the ideal wind turbine cannot reach
higher power coefficient than 16/27, which is commonly called the
Betz-Lanchester limit (sometimes called Betz-Lanchester law) [2].
However, this relationship was derived with very strict assump-
tions, the axial generator with infinite number of blades was
assumed and the flow was considered as stationary, incompressible
and frictionless. De Lellis et al. [3] have shown that the Betz-
Lanchester limit holds for all devices having horizontal-axis rota-
tional motion perpendicular to the wind direction. Moreover, au-
thors have proved that the limit equal to 16/27 holds for a purely
drag-based device, while the limit 4/27 holds for a purely lift-
based device. On the other hand, Jiang et al. [4] have presented
that the limiting power coefficient depends on the tip speed ratio
(TSR) and it approaches the Betz-Lanchester limit only when the
TSR tends to infinity. The assumptions made to derive Betz-
Lanchester law rise some doubts whether this law applies to
VAWTs. Lately, some papers have appeared which show that in
specific situations a wind generator can achieve power coefficient
value higher than theoretical Betz-Lanchester limit. Tho €nnißen
et al. [5] applied multiobjective optimization algorithm coupled
with free vortex model and inviscid panel code to optimize VAWT
performance reaching power coefficient around 6% higher than the
theoretical limit. Vennell [6] has presented results for tidal turbines

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2020.08.145
0960-1481/© 2020 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

ski and T. Krysin
Ł. Marzec, Z. Bulin
ski
showing that in confined channels the power coefficient can be
higher than 16/27 for an ideal Betz turbine. Similar behaviour has
been reported for dense cross-stream array of wind turbines by
Tartari and Nishino [7].
Although the current VAWT constructions have lower effi-
ciency than HAWTs, their inherent advantages are the reason why
the number of scientific papers considering experimental and
computational investigations of these turbines is increasing
rapidly. One of the first experimental measurements of Savonius
wind turbines were presented by Kamoji et al. [8,9]. They
considered measurements of the single and multistage Savonius
based rotors in a wind tunnel, proving the increase of efficiency as
the number of segments decreases, but with a positive influence
on the equalization of torque values. The similar work has been
carried out by Saha et al. [10], they considered influence of
number of stages, number of blades and their shape on the per-
formance of a wind turbine. The combined experimental and
computational study was presented by Howell et al. [11]. The two-
and three-dimensional unsteady computational fluid dynamics
models, with consideration of different tip-speed ratios, wind
velocities and solidity were validated against experimental mea-
surements. The work shows that the two dimensional CFD models
overestimate the turbine torque comparing to the experimental
results and three-dimensional models. Dobrev and Massouh [12]
in their paper presented the study of flow through the Savonius
type rotor carried out with three-dimensional CFD model which
was validated against the Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) mea-
surements carried out in a wind tunnel. The paper presented by
Nasef et al. [13] shows the influence of the overlap ratio of a
Savonius wind turbine by mean of CFD simulation. Authors
considered the influence of four types of turbulence model on the
obtained results. The study shows that the k - u SST turbulence
model gives more accurate results comparing to the RNG k - ε,
Standard k - ε and Realizable k - ε models. The work by D’Ales-
sandro et al. [14] presents the CFD model coupled with 1 Degree
Of Freedom code which is able to predict performance of the
Savonius turbine by calculating the rotational speed based on the
forces exerted on the rotor surfaces. This kind of approach allows
one to compute the actual rotational speed including the starting
period. The results were validated against experimental mea-
surements in a wind tunnel. Liu et al. [15] in their work also
considered 3D CFD model with 1 Degree Of Freedom approach but
the research subject was combined with VAWT rotor consisting of
Savonius and Darreieus rotors. The numerical study by Kacprzak
et al. [16] presented results of the CFD computations for two
different rotor shapes of the Savonius wind turbine. There are also
some attempts to optimize the shape of Savonius rotor presented
in literature, see papers [17e21]. In all articles a power coefficient
increase of about 30% is reported.
Up to now there have been a few attempts to apply Fluid
Structure Interaction (FSI) methodology to model wind turbine
performance. The earliest work that considered the deformation
of wind turbine rotor was carried out by Friedmann [22]. The
paper presents a set of coupled flap-lag-torsional equations of
motion for a single wind turbine blade and the influence of the
rotor forces on the wind turbine tower. Paper by Wang et al. [23]
presents 1-way transfer of resulting pressure forces from the CFD
solver to predict displacements and stress from Finite Element
Method (FEM) analysis of a single blade. A similar but more
complex approach to one-way FSI was presented by Lee at al [24].
They reported the analysis of the two blades HAWT rotor and
tower. The attempt of 1-way FSI analysis of operating hydrokinetic
Savonius turbine was presented by Kumar and Sarkar [25]. In the
developed approach, authors divided one revolution into 24
quasi-steady state 1-way analyses for which rotor orientation
273
Renewable Energy 164 (2021) 272e284
differs by 15+
and for such models displacements and stresses
caused by airflow were computed. More complex modelling
approach refers to a 2-way fluid structure interaction, in which
the resultant pressure forces calculated using CFD model are
transferred to structural analysis solver and then the resulting
displacements are transferred back to the CFD solver as a defor-
mation of the computational domain. An example of application
of the 2-way FSI to consider influence of deformation of propeller
blades on their performance is presented in the paper by Sodja
et al. [26]. Authors have shown positive influence of deformation
on the efficiency of differently shaped blades. The paper by Cas-
telli et al. [27] presents the one way FSI model of Darrieus VAWT,
showing the deformation of the blade due to interaction with
airflow and inertial effects. Ke et al. [28] in their work considered
the FSI analysis of large horizontal axis wind turbine under
typhoon conditions. An interesting approach was presented by
Marini
c-Kragi
c et al. [29]. Basically, the default setup of FSI cal-
culations require 3D model, in the perspective of translating the
calculated pressure onto the surface of the deformable structural
object. In this work, the CFD domain around operating Savonius
rotor was limited to 3 mm deep slice in the Z direction, hence
effectively this model was two-dimensional. Although such an
approach does not reflect the full impact of deformation on tur-
bine performance, it gives a general view of the problem and
significantly reduces the calculation time. The papers by MacPhee
and Beyene [30] and Santo et al. [31] present two-way FSI analyses
of operating horizontal axis wind turbines. In these papers the in-
house codes were used to model the wind turbine operation. The
similar approach was presented by Sousa et al. [32]. The authors
carried out a two-way FSI analysis of blades of small radio-
controlled helicopter, computation results were validated
against digital image correlation measurements.
Besides the comprehensive investigation covering possibility of
optimization of the shape of wind turbine rotors such as the work
by Krysin
ski [17], it is important to develop model which could spot
issues that potentially decrease the turbine efficiency and reli-
ability. Although the previous work [33] has shown significant
potential in the improvement of efficiency of the wind turbines by
modification of a blade shape, it is also important to reduce the
mass of wind turbine rotors while maintaining the proper stiffness
and reasonable production costs. Therefore, reliable model
covering fluid flow and structural aspects of the wind turbine
operation is highly needed.
The paper aims at developing the advanced two-way FSI model
of the Savonius wind turbine. The carried out computations pro-
vide detailed information on the instantaneous turbine operation
described by the values of turbine torque, rotor deformations and
strains in turbine structure. Moreover, the developed mathemat-
ical model allowed us to analyse influence of the structure
deformation on the performance of the wind turbine. The results
obtained using two-way FSI approach were confronted against the
model covering only fluid flow. Moreover, the influence of the
centrifugal forces on the computations results was presented.
Computations for all cases were carried out for the tip speed ratio
around 0.8 which is close to optimal operating point for the
Savonius wind turbine.
2. Numerical model of fluid structure interaction
The two-way FSI requires the use of two main solvers to un-
tangle the strongly coupled physical problem. The computational
fluid dynamic solver which uses the Finite Volume Method and
structural solver which uses the Finite Element Method were
connected in ANSYS Workbench environment by the system
coupling module to control iterative process and data exchange

ski and T. Krysin
Ł. Marzec, Z. Bulin
ski
Fig. 1. Scheme of the unsteady FSI computations.
(forces and displacements) between those two solvers. The scheme
of calculation procedure is shown in Fig. 1. At the beginning of the
new time step, the CFD solver is called and the flow field is iterated
at a new position of the turbine rotor. Once the flow field is
converged at new rotor position, forces are transferred to the
structural solver due to pressure and shear stresses in fluid. For a
new set of loads, the structural solver computes stresses and de-
formations of a rotor. Information on the rotor deformations is send
to the fluid solver to update the shape of the computational domain
and then the flow field is solved. After the fluid solver converges for
the new shape of the computational domain, convergence of the FSI
coupling loop is checked; once the convergence criterion is fulfilled,
algorithm moves to the next time step. If the convergence criterion
is not fulfilled, the next iteration of the coupling loop is performed.
Details on the data exchange between solvers are given in section
3.4.
The coupled FSI model of operating VAWT comprises of three
computational domains: one domain including rotor is used for
structural analysis and two domains are used in CFD solver and
enclose region around rotor. The CFD domain has been divided into
an outer stationary part and an inner rotational part. The domains
are connected by the use of interfaces. Moreover, the inner CFD
274
Renewable Energy 164 (2021) 272e284
domain is established as deformable in order to incorporate de-
formations computed from FEM solver.
2.1. Computational domain and numerical grid
The geometry of the rotor is based on the characteristic shape of
the Savonius wind turbine which was experimentally investigated
by Kamoji et al. [34]. The diameter and height of the rotor is equal to
500 mm and the overlap ratio is set to 15% of the diameter. The
thickness of both blades and supporting discs is 2 mm. The sup-
porting discs diameter is set to 1.1 of the blades diameter. The rotor
geometry is shown in Fig. 2.
To avoid the influence of boundary conditions on the results of
turbine computations, the size of stationary domain was set up
based on the guidelines given by Krysin
ski [17] on modelling of the
Savonius VAWTs. Hence, the size of the computational domain was
20D in height, 40D in width, the distance before the turbine
equated 40D and the distance behind the turbine was assumed
20D. Stationary computational domain is shown in Fig. 3. The
diameter of the inner rotational domain was set up as 1:5D and
1:5D height, where D is external diameter of the rotor, see Fig. 2.
The computational mesh for the fluid flow solver was generated
with tetrahedron and triangular prism mesh elements. The selec-
tion of a grid element type was dictated by good behaviour of
tetrahedrons in procedure of volume diffusion smoothing of mesh
caused by geometry adjusting due to structural deformation of
rotor.The boundary layer on the rotor wall geometry consisted of 16
layers, which is considered to be the optimum value on the basis of
previously conducted studies of the impact of the boundary layer
on the measured efficiency of the turbine [35]. The details of nu-
merical mesh in boundary layer is shown in Fig. 4. The number of
elements in the CFD mesh was about 20 million. The size of the
mesh elements, boundary layer and computational domain size
were established based on the grid size independence analysis
published in Ref. [33,35]. The face meshes on the both sides of
sliding interface between stationary and rotational domains were
established to have similar sizes. In Figs. 4 and 5 the details of the
CFD mesh in regions crucial for the flow can be seen.
To facilitate mapping of forces on interface surfaces between
ANSYS Fluent and ANSYS Mechanical, the exact same cell sizes were
established on the structural mesh. The FEM mesh was established
with approximately 200000 elements maintaining at least three
elements across the thickness of the rotor walls. The mesh for
structural solver is presented in Fig. 6.
3. Mathematical model
3.1. Fluid flow model
The flow around the operating wind turbine was assumed to be
transient, turbulent and non-isothermal, hence it was described
using the Unsteady Reynolds Average Navier-Stokes (URANS) set of
equations. The additional Reynolds stresses which arise due to
averaging procedure were described using Boussinesque approxi-
mation and the k-u SST turbulence model. Changes of the
computational mesh due to deformation of flow boundaries were
described using the smoothing method. In order to obtain more
stable solution, it is recommended to treat the working fluid (in this
case-air) as a compressible ideal gas, therefore the energy balance
equation needs to be solved together with flow equations. How-
ever, the temperature variations are small and air is transparent,
therefore heat transfer can be neglected due to radiation. Treating
air as a compressible ideal gas instead of incompressible was
mainly dictated by the solution stability issues. Obviously, for this
particular case, the constant density assumption is valid but it is

ski and T. Krysin
Ł. Marzec, Z. Bulin
ski Renewable Energy 164 (2021) 272e284

Fig. 2. Geometry of the analysed turbine rotor.

Fig. 5. Cross-section of the computational mesh in the inner (rotational) domain.

Fig. 3. The stationary computational domain visualization with dimensions marked as
a multiple of the turbine rotor diameter (D), inner domain detail and boundary
conditions.

Fig. 6. Detailed view of numerical mesh for structural computations.

Fig. 4. Detail view of the computational mesh for fluid flow solver in the neighbour-
hood of the turbine rotor.

equivalent to assuming infinite speed of propagation of small dis-

turbances. This leads to local appearance of high amplitude pres- vr
þ V , ðruÞ ¼ 0 (1)
sure oscillations at the CFD-FEM interface caused by boundary vt
deformation. These pressure oscillations produce solution prob-
lems but they are non-physical as well. where r stands for the fluid density, u is the velocity vector and t
The mass conservation equation can be written as follows [36]: represents time.
The momentum conservation equation writes [36]:
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Ł. Marzec, Z. Bulin
ski Renewable Energy 164 (2021) 272e284

computed as:
vðruÞ
þ V , ðruuÞ ¼  Vp þ rg þ V , t þ V,tR (2)  
vt F1 ¼ tanh arg14 (9)
where p is the static pressure, g stands for the gravitational accel-
"
" pffiffiffi # #
eration, t refers to the shear stress tensor due to molecular vis- k 500m 4rk
cosity, for compressible ideal gas it is computed as: arg1 ¼ min max ; ; (10)
0:09uy ry2 u su;2 Dþ
uy
2

  
2
t ¼  mV , u I þ m Vu þ VuT (3) y is the distance to the nearest surface and Dþ
u is a positive portion a
3
cross-diffusion term which is defined as below:
where m stands for the coefficient of molecular viscosity and I is the 
r
identity matrix. Dþ
u ¼ max 2 Vk , Vu; 1010 (11)
Notation tR in the last term on the right hand side of Equation
usu;2
(2) is the Reynolds stress tensor, which describes the additional Turbulent viscosity mt is computed as:
stress caused by the turbulence of the flow. Mathematically, it
arises from averaging of the momentum equation. The elements of rk 1
mt ¼  (12)
this tensor equal to variations of the fluctuations of velocity com- u
ponents and are assumed to be proportional to the gradient of the max a1* ; aSF1 u2
mean velocity field:
! where a* is a damping coefficient which is calculated as in k-u
  vui vuj 2 model for high-Reynolds number, a* ¼ a*∞ ¼ 1. For low-Reynolds
tRij ¼  r u’i u’j ¼ mt þ  rkdij ; (4)
vxj vxi 3 number damping coefficient a* is given by:

where mt is the turbulent viscosity and k refers to the kinetic tur- * a* þ Ret Rk
a ¼ a*∞ 0 (13)
bulent energy, indices i; j ¼ 1; 2; 3 refers appropriately to x; y; z axes 1 þ Ret =Rk
in the Carthesian coordinate system, dij stands for Kronecker delta,
it equals to 1 when indices i and j are equal, otherwise it equals to 0. where:
The energy balance equation can be written as follows [36]:
rk
  Ret ¼ (14)
vðrEÞ mu
þ V , ðuðrE þ pÞÞ ¼ V, keff VT (5)
vt
Rk ¼ 6 (15)
where E is the total energy, keff represents the effective conduc-
tivity which is the sum of thermal conductivity and turbulent
thermal conductivity. bj
a*0 ¼ (16)
To simulate turbulent flow the two equation k-u SST model was 3
used, which provides relatively good results comparing to the
Reynolds Stress models and is less computationally expensive, see bj ¼ 0:072 (17)
Refs. [33]. The k-u SST model is a combination of Standard k - u and
S is magnitude of the strain rate.
k-ε turbulence models, hence it combines the good prediction of
The function F2 is calculated as fallows:
the freestream flow of the k-ε model and very well behaviour of the
k -u model in the near wall region of the flow. This is the two-  
equation model, which means that two additional transport F2 ¼ tanh arg22 (18)
equations are solved. The transport equation for kinetic turbulent
energy writes [37,38]: pffiffiffi " #
k 500m

 arg2 ¼ max 2 ; (19)
v mt 0:09uy ry2 u
ðrkÞ þ V , ðrkuÞ ¼ V , mþ Vk þ Pk  Yk (6)
vt sk The turbulent Prandtl numbers from transport equations are
computed due to:
where sk is the turbulent Prandtl number, PK stands for production
of turbulent kinetic energy and YK refers to dissipation rate of ki- 1
netic turbulence energy. The transport equation for the specific sk ¼ F1 ð1F Þ
(20)
sk;1 þ sk;2
1
dissipation rate writes:


v mt 1
ðruÞ þ V , ðruuÞ ¼ V , mþ Vu þ Pu  Yu þ Du (7) su ¼ (21)
vt su F1 ð1F1 Þ
su;1 þ su;2
where Pu defines production of the specific dissipation rate, Yu The turbulent kinetic energy k is treated, in the same way as in
stands for dissipation rates of specific dissipation rate and Du is the standard k-u model. The main difference is in the term Pu in
additional cross-diffusion term described as: transport equations, which is calculated as:
r
Du ¼ 2ð1  F1 Þ Vk,Vu (8) aa*
usu;2 Pu ¼ Pk (22)
vt
where su;2 is a model constant and F1 is a blending function
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Ł. Marzec, Z. Bulin
ski Renewable Energy 164 (2021) 272e284

in k-u SST model the a∞ is not a constant as in standard k-u model passed from the structural solver. In the diffusion, smoothing the
and it is calculated as: node position is updated based on the solution of the diffusion
equation [39]:
a∞ ¼ F1 a∞;1 þ ð1 þ F1 Þa∞;2 (23)  
V , g , Vug ¼ 0 (33)
where:
where ug is the mesh displacement velocity and diffusion coeffi-
b k2 cient g which is computed as follows:
a∞;1 ¼ i;1
*
 qffiffiffiffiffiffiffi (24)
b∞ su;1 b*
∞ 1
g¼ (34)
Va
bi;2 k2
a∞;2 ¼  qffiffiffiffiffiffiffi (25) where V is a normalized cell volume and a is the diffusion
b*∞ su;2 b* parameter, it assumes only positive values, the closer value of
∞
diffusion parameters is to zero, the more uniform diffusion of node
The variable of bi is blended with F1 function as below position is applied, when the diffusion parameter value is
increased, the lower is susceptibility of the boundary cells to
bi ¼ F1 bi;1 þ ð1  F1 Þbi;1 (26)
deformation. For good preservation of boundary layer mesh, values
of diffusion parameter between 1 and 1.5 are recommended.
Yk defines the dissipation of turbulence kinetic energy which is
calculated as below:
3.3. Structural analysis
Yk ¼ rb* ku (27)
The equation of motion for an isotropic, linear-elastic solid is
where: written as below [40]:

b* ¼ b*i ½1 þ z* FðMt Þ (28) v2 v s

rs ¼ V,ss þ f s (35)
vt 2
" . #
4 15 þ ðRet =Rb Þ4 where rs is the solid density, f s stands for body forces acting on the
b*i ¼ b*∞ (29)
1 þ ðRet =Rb Þ4 solid, vs refers to the displacement field in the solid, ss is the stress
tensor field in a solid. In case of the isotropic linear-elastic solid
Constants represents the default values: components of the stress tensor depends on the local strain field as
follows:
sk ;1 ¼ 1:176; sk ;2 ¼ 1:0; su ;1 ¼ 2:0; su ;2 ¼ 1:168 (30)
!
vvi vvj
* ss;ij ¼ lV , vs dij þ G þ (36)
bi ;1 ¼ 0:075; bi ;2 ¼ 0:0828; b∞ ¼ 0:009 (31) vxj vxi

a1 ¼ 0:31; Rb ¼ 8; z* ¼ 1:5; k ¼ 0:41: (32) where l and G are Lame’s constants (G is also called modulus of
elasticity in shear). Commonly, these constants are written in terms
of Young’s modulus E of material and Poisson’s ratio n [40]:

3.2. Modelling of mesh deformation in the CFD solver En

l¼ (37)
ð1 þ nÞð1  2nÞ
At every iteration of the CFD-Structural coupling procedure,
data between both solvers are exchanged. From the CFD solver E
G¼ (38)
stresses (pressure) at the solid surface are transferred to the 2ð1 þ nÞ
structural solver. While, from the structural solver, information on
For the considered problem, the equation of motion of a turbine
the deformation of the solid surface is exported to the CFD solver.
rotor (35) is written in the rotating reference frame, therefore
Hence, at each CFD-Structural iteration the fluid computational
additional terms related to inertial body forces need to be consid-
domain is modified, this requires some extra measures to copy with
ered. Hence the second term on the right hand side of equation (35)
the deformations of the numerical mesh in the fluid domain. In this
writes:
case, due to relatively small deformations of the blades shape, the
dynamic mesh approach was limited to smoothing only instead of

vvs
full remeshing. This approach allowed us to save computational f s ¼  9s 2u  þuur (39)
vt
time, since the full remeshing is considerably more demanding.
Although, the mesh deformations are not so significant in this
where u is the vector of angular velocity of solid with respect to
problem, the smoothing algorithm should ensure reasonable
global inertial reference frame, vv
vt refers to the rate of deformation
s
spreading of the deformation across a number of mesh layers from
of solid in the rotating reference frame and r stands for position
the deforming wall. Because this will limit decrease of mesh quality
near the wall, which is crucial for accurate computations of the vector in the rotating reference frame.
boundary layer flow and hence forces acting on the rotor. This
method keeps the number of cells and their type constant, only 3.4. Coupling of fluid flow and structural solvers
position of cell nodes is modified.
In this work the volume diffusion smoothing method was As it has already been mentioned, in every iteration of the fluid-
applied to modify the mesh after the deformation information is structural coupling algorithm, the data between structural and
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Ł. Marzec, Z. Bulin
ski Renewable Energy 164 (2021) 272e284

fluid solvers is interchanged. Fluid flow solver sends load distri- wind speed:where TSR is the tip speed ratio:
bution at the solid surface while the structural solver sends
resulting deformation of solid body (cf. Fig. 1). Both normal (pres- uD
TSR ¼ (45)
sure) and shear (viscous) forces acting on the solid wall are trans- 2w∞
ferred to the structural solver, the normal vector force is computed The pressure outlet boundary condition was set at the oppo-
as: site side of the computational domain. At the top, bottom and
  side faces, the symmetry boundary condition was set up. The
Fp ¼ p  pref A (40) symmetry boundary condition assumes that derivatives of all
dependent variables (pressure, velocity vector, Reynolds Stresses
where p is the static gauge pressure at the solid wall, pref stands for and kinetic turbulent energy etc.) in the direction perpendicular
reference gauge pressure - chosen in such a way to simplify to the symmetry plane are equal to zero. Between stationary and
computation of the resultant force acting on the body, A stands for rotational domains the mesh interface was established across
surface normal vector. The shear force at the solid wall is computed which computation results are exchanged. The rotor surface was
as: set up as a FSI interface. The initial conditions which were
applied for CFD computations are gathered in Table 1.
Ft ¼ tw ,A (41)
3.6. Boundary and initial conditions for the structural solver
where tw refers to the shear stress tensor in fluid at the solid wall.
The total force due to interaction between flowing fluid and solid
For the structural computations, it was assumed that the tur-
wall is a sum of forces described by Equations (40) and (41).
bine rotor was fixed on the shaft as it can be seen in Fig. 3. The
The local displacements transferred from the structural solver to
remaining surfaces of the turbine rotor were assumed the FSI
fluid flow solver represent the incremental displacements for cur-
interface, therefore it was loaded with surface forces computed
rent time step and they are only available on the walls which are FSI
using fluid flow solver. The structural computations were initial-
interfaces.
ized with no forces acting on the rotor surfaces. The initial position
The evaluation of convergence of the iterative FSI procedure is
of the rotor with respect to wind direction is shown in Fig. 3.
carried out at the end of each iteration. Algorithm convergence is
Moreover, the rotor was loaded with centrifugal and Coriolis
determined in terms of the Root Mean Square (RMS) of data
forces.
mapped between fluid flow and structural solvers:
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 3.7. Physical properties
RMS ¼ Db2 (42)
l
The working fluid was air treated as an ideal gas. Density was
b is the normalized change in the values of data transferred assumed to be function of temperature and pressure and it was
where D l computed using ideal gas equation of state. Remaining properties
between two consecutive iterations of the coupling algorithm and
were assumed constant values, see Table 2. The rotor is considered
is computed as:
as an aluminium alloy mono-block. The material properties of
Dl aluminium alloy were described in Table 3.
b ¼
D (43)
l
0:5  ðmaxjfj  minjfjÞ þ jfj
3.8. Solver settings
where f is the value of transferred data and l is the location of this
The segregated pressure based solver was used to solve the
data on coupling interface, f is the mean value of transferred data
fluid flow model. The Pressure Staggering Option (PRESTO!)
and Dl refers to absolute change of transferred data:
method for pressure interpolation was used. The pressure-velocity
1  curr pre
 coupling was handled with the SIMPLE Semi Implicit Method for
Dl ¼ fl  fl (44) Pressure-Linked Equation (SIMPLE) algorithm. Unsteady compu-
u
tations were carried out until quasi-steady conditions were
pre
where u is the under-relaxation factor and fcurr
l
and fl corre- reached. The quasi-steady state was defined as a state in which the
spond to the current and previous iteration. torque averaged over one rotor revolution is not changing more
than 1% with respect to previous revolution. In this case, the quasi-
steady state was achieved after three revolutions and the fourth
3.5. Boundary and initial conditions for fluid flow solver
revolution was considered as a final.The first order implicit
formulation was used to integrate equations in time. The length of
In order to compare the influence of rotor deformation on the
the time step was set up to 0.00036361 s, which is an equivalent
turbine performance, exactly the same boundary conditions were
of one degree of rotor rotation and ensures a relative error below
assumed in ANSYS Fluent for fluid simulation in the two-way FSI
model and the reference CFD simulation.
The types of applied boundary conditions are schematically Table 1
presented in Fig. 3. At the inlet boundary, value equals to 15 m/s Initial values.
and direction normal to boundary of air velocity vector was
Parameter Value Unit
assumed. The surface of wind turbine rotor was assumed to
Gauge Pressure 0 Pa
rotate around its axis with angular velocity equal to 48 rad/s.
X Velocity 0 m/s
Values of air velocity magnitude and rotor angular velocity Y Velocity 0 m/s
magnitude were chosen such that the turbine Tip Speed Ratio Z Velocity 15 m/s
(TSR) equals to 0.8 which is considered an optimal operating Turbulent Kinetic Energy 0.844 M2/s2
point of the Savonius wind turbine [13,17,34]. The turbine tip Specific Dissipation Rate 5548.3 1/s
Temperature 300 K
speed ratio is defined as a ratio of velocity of rotor speed to the
278

ski and T. Krysin
Ł. Marzec, Z. Bulin
ski Renewable Energy 164 (2021) 272e284

Table 2 Table 5
Physical properties of air. Values of average torque, torque coefficient and power coefficient for range of
1080e1440
.
Quantity Value Unit
Parameter FSI Reference Unit
Molecular Weight 28.966 kg/kmol
Specific heat 1006.46 J/kg K Tavg 2.1952 2.0713 Nm
Thermal conductivity 0.0242 W/m K Ct 0.1735 0.1637 e
Viscosity 1.7894E-5 kg/m s Cp 0.1388 0.1309 e

Table 3
Physical properties of aluminium.
Quantity Value
Young’s Modulus 71000
Density 2770
Poisson’s Ratio 0.33
Tensile Yield Strength 280
Tensile Ultimate Strength 310
1.2% compared to the lower time step value [33]. Applied spatial
discretization schemes are gathered in Table 4.
4. Results
The main aim of this paper is to develop a reliable mathematical
model to predict performance of the Savonius wind turbine,
especially the mutual interactions between structural deformation
and fluid flow are of interest. For this purpose fully coupled Fluid
Structure Interaction model of operating Savonius wind turbine
was developed. In order to better understand the influence of
structure deformations on the turbine operation and performance,
three hierarchical models were developed. The first model com-
prises the fluid flow around operating turbine only. In the second
model, the two-way FSI of operating wind turbine was considered
but in this model the centrifugal force acting on the turbine rotor
was neglected. The last model considered the two-way FSI and
Coriolis and centrifugal forces acting on the rotating turbine rotor.
Except the possibility of assessing the influence of structure
deformation on the wind turbine performance, this kind of hier-
archical development of the mathematical model is recommended
for highly coupled physical problems because it helps to assess the
influence of the specific elements of the model and potential errors
may be revealed [41,42].
The developed FSI model allowed us to retrieved instantaneous
distributions of field variables like pressure, velocity, stresses etc..
Based on these data the influence of rotor deformation on the wind
turbine operation was evaluated in terms of the power coefficient
Cp which is defined as:
T Tavg
Ct ¼ ¼ (47)
Unit Tmax ArDw3∞
MPa
kg/m3
where Tavg stands for the resulting turbine torque averaged over
e one full rotor revolution and w∞ is the wind speed of undisturbed
MPa wind flow, r is the wind density, D is a rotor diameter and A de-
MPa scribes the rotor area. As above-mentioned, the presented
computation results were obtained for TSR equal to 0.8.
In literature there are no experimental data which could be used
to validate the fully coupled FSI model of the Savonius wind turbine
because of lack of measurements of the rotor structure de-
formations or stresses. Therefore, validation of the proposed model
was carried out for fluid flow solver only. The details of validation
procedure are given in the following works [17,33]. In order to
assess influence of the rotor deformations on its performance,
computations of exactly the same Savonius rotor under the same
wind conditions were carried out until pseudo-steady state is
reached. The pseudo-steady state in case of all considered models
(CFD only, full FSI coupling, FSI without centrifugal force) was
reached after four full rotations of the turbine.
4.1. Influence of deformation of the Savonius turbine rotor on its
performance
Fig. 7 presents variation of instantaneous resultant torque for
the rotor computed with fully coupled FSI and reference model
(fluid flow) for four consecutive rotations, hence it includes the
turbine starting period. For the assessment of the turbine perfor-
mance, the starting period during which the biggest deformations
are observed should be neglected. The biggest torque fluctuations
are obviously observed at the turbine start up but it can be noticed
that the torque stabilizes quite quickly after first two revolutions;
the difference in torque averaged over one revolution is below 5%.
In Fig. 8 torque variation obtained with fully coupled FSI model and
fluid flow model (reference) for the last revolution are compared.
The values of torque reveals periodical character of this quantity
when considered as a function of the rotor angle. This is the result

Cp ¼ Ct ,TSR (46)

where Ct is the torque coefficient defined as follows:

Table 4
Spatial discretization schemes.

Variable Spatial discretization scheme

Gradient Least Squares Cell Based

Pressure PRESTO!
Density Second Order Upwind
Momentum Second Order Upwind
Turbulent Kinetic Energy First Order Upwind
Specific Dissipation Rate First Order Upwind
Fig. 7. Instantaneous torque produced by the turbine as a function of the rotor angle
Energy Second Order Upwind
for the whole simulation (angle ranges from 0
to 1440
).

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ski and T. Krysin
Ł. Marzec, Z. Bulin
ski Renewable Energy 164 (2021) 272e284

of the periodic exposure of rotor working surfaces against the wind. 220+ when measured from the beginning of the full revolution. The
It can be noticed that the torque curve for the full FSI model is initial position of the rotor with respect to the wind direction and
shifted slightly upwards and to the left. It is caused by the rotor hence the position defining beginning of the full revolution is
deformation induced by the wind. The values of torque in the FSI shown in Fig. 3.
model after the first 300
of revolution start to exceed and The carried out computations showed that described rotor
outdistance the values of reference model (see Fig. 7). The deformations during turbine operation give positive impact on the
discrepancy between those two models increases with the subse-
quent revolutions until it stabilizes around the fourth revolution.
The difference of position in the peak values of torque for second
revolution are 7 and 8
receptively. For the third and fourth revo-
lution the difference increases to value of 9
.
In Fig. 9, the instantaneous maximum deformation of the rotor
(regardless the position of this deformation) for the last revolution
is presented. It can be observed that the highest deformations reach
value close to 4 mm at angle around 1180
which corresponds to
the position in which chords of the rotor blades create with the
wind direction an angle slightly higher than the normal angle.
As one can see in Fig. 10 the value of displacement is about
2.2 mm for the wind loaded blade and about 1.3 mm in the opposite
direction for a non-loaded blade. Both measured at 1380
on outer
tips of blades at the top mounting disk. This kind of displacement
indicates that the rotor is twisted with respect to the rotation axis
Fig. 9. Maximum deformation of rotor as a function of rotor angle in the range of
of the turbine and in accordance with the direction of rotor rota-
1080
e1440
.
tion. The upper disc is rotated by an angle of 0.12
with respect to
the bottom disk.
In Fig. 11 maximum deformations observed on the top and
bottom disk of the turbine are presented. This dependence in-
dicates that the upper disk is the part of turbine rotor which is the
most unevenly loaded by the wind pressure. Moreover, the defor-
mation of upper mounting disk, which is directly exposed to the
wind, is coherent with the deformation of the blades. Hence, the
whole rotor is twisted in the leeward direction as it was already
mentioned. Besides the obvious coverage of the two maximum
torque values with the two peaks of deformation value per revo-
lution, the unsteady brake down of the deformation values occurs
in the range of 520e740
. This kind of behaviour occurs every four
deformation peaks.
In Fig. 12 the pressure contours in two crucial positions of rotor
is presented. At the rotor angle equal to 1260
, the biggest area of
rotor is exposed to the wind. On the contrary, for the rotor angle
equal to 1350
, rotor blades creates the smallest area exposed
directly to wind. In both these positions, the significant pressure
difference can be observed between upper and lower mounting
discs as they are the first parts of the rotor exposed to direct in-
fluence of wind. The deformation distribution of the rotor for these
two orientations is shown in Fig. 13.
The lowest torque value is observed around rotor angle 40+ and Fig. 10. Deformation field on the upper turbine disk and at the blade tips at rotor angle
1380
.

Fig. 8. Instantaneous torque produced by the turbine as a function of the rotor angle Fig. 11. Maximum deformation of rotor discs probes as a function of rotor angle in the
for the last revolution (angle ranges from 1080
to 1440
). range of 0
e1440
.

280

ski and T. Krysin
Ł. Marzec, Z. Bulin
ski Renewable Energy 164 (2021) 272e284

Fig. 12. The pressure contours on rotor at position 1260
and 1350
in perspective of wind direction.

Fig. 13. The deformation distribution at the rotor surface for two rotor positions: 1260
and 1350
in perspective of wind direction.

aerodynamic performance of the rotor. The maximum and mini- where u is the rotational velocity vector and r stands for the po-
mum values of torque observed during one revolution are sition vector. For simplicity, it can be assumed that Savonius turbine
noticeably higher comparing to the reference model (see Fig. 8). rotates around the stationary axis, hence the magnitude of the
The difference for the torque maximum at rotor angle around centrifugal force can be computed as:
1400+ equals to 0.15 Nm, while the difference for the minimum at ð
the rotor angle around 1300+ equals to 0.21 Nm. These differences FCF ¼ u2 rs rdV (49)
in torque values produce significant increase in the rotor perfor-
Vrotor
mance. In Table 5 overall performance of the wind turbine ob-
tained with fully coupled FSI and reference models are compared.
where r is the distance from the rotation axis to a given point
As it can be observed, the overall performance increase is equal to
belonging to the rotor and Vrotor stands for the rotor volume.
around 5% in the produced power and turbine efficiency.
Assuming the specific operating point i.e. given value of wind speed
winf and tip speed ratio TSR, equation (49) can be written as
4.2. Discussion of the influence of centrifugal force for coupled FSI
follows:
computations
ð
TSR2 w2inf
One of the main advantages of Savonius rotors is that they FCF ¼ rs rdV (50)
operate at relatively low speeds comparing to other vertical axis
R2
Vrotor
wind turbines what infer conclusion that the centrifugal force may
be of minor importance for operation of this type of a wind turbine. where R stands for the rotor external radius. Basically, the integral
Generally, the centrifugal force for a rotating solid body can be in equation (50) is positive and proportional to deflection of the
computed as an integral over this body volume: rotor centre of mass from the rotation axis, which may be caused by
ð rotor unbalance due to imperfect manufacturing or by wind
FCF ¼ rs u  u  rdV (48) pressure.
Vbody
Taking a closer look at equation (50), it can be noticed that the
centrifugal force is increasing with the increment in the size of the
turbine rotor; that is caused by the increasing value of the right
281

ski and T. Krysin
Ł. Marzec, Z. Bulin
ski
Fig. 14. Temporary torque as a function of the rotor angle in the range of 1080
e1440

for all models.
Fig. 15. Maximum deformation of rotor as a function of rotor angle in the range of
1080
e1440
for models with and without centrifugal force.
hand side integral part of the equation. But on the other hand the
equation shows that for the prescribed operating point, the cen-
trifugal force is inversely proportional to the external rotor diam-
eter. Therefore, it can be concluded that the centrifugal force plays
Fig. 16. The deformation contours on rotor at position 1260
and 1350
in perspective of wind direction for FSI model with centrifugal force.
282
Renewable Energy 164 (2021) 272e284
an important role for all types of vertical axis wind turbines.
Nevertheless, it is interesting, how this force influences the turbine
operation and observed deflection of its rotor. That is why we
carried out computations without centrifugal for the analysed
problem and they were compared with the full FSI model in order
to verify this influence.
Fig. 14 presents the comparison of the instantaneous torque for
the last turbine revolution obtained with the full FSI coupling, FSI
without centrifugal force and the reference CFD model. Significant
oscillations and instabilities on the torque curve can be observed
for computations carried out without centrifugal force. These in-
stabilities are caused by the finite time that is necessary for
deformation caused by wind pressure to propagate along the
height of rotor. If the centrifugal force did not act the rotor would
deflect in the opposite direction to the wind. But the deformation
process takes some time during which turbine would turn through
some angle and it would not be leaned opposite to the wind di-
rection which is privileged due to wind pressure. This would result
in instabilities of the torque which are observed in Fig. 14. The
centrifugal force damps this instabilities because it acts outward
the rotation axis and keeps the rotor axis deflected from the rota-
tion axis.
In Fig. 15 maximum rotor deformation for full FSI model and FSI
model without centrifugal force are compared. It can be noticed
that the latter model predicts significantly bigger deformations far
above 5 mm. Moreover, the maximum deformation curve for the
case without centrifugal force is not smooth, it exhibits abrupt
changes in the tendency of the maximum deformation function
which is accompanied with abrupt changes in the torque value.
Figs. 16 and 17 present comparison of the rotor deformation field
for full coupled FSI and FSI without centrifugal force for rotor angles
1260 and 1350
. It can be noticed that the upper turbine disk un-
dergoes significant upward deflection, especially in the situation
when the blade chord forms the right angle with the wind direc-
tion. In the model which includes the centrifugal force, this force
balances the drag force acting on the plate and hence it decreases
the deflection. Moreover, distending of both blades can be
observed, especially in first rotation period, what can be seen in the
deformation animations (Fig. 18). It indicates that this type of
deformation may occur during the starting period or when the
rotation direction of turbine rotor changes.

ski and T. Krysin
Ł. Marzec, Z. Bulin
ski Renewable Energy 164 (2021) 272e284

Fig. 17. The deformation contours on rotor at position 1260
and 1350
in perspective of wind direction for FSI model without centrifugal force.

web link encoded in the QR code in Fig. 18.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Łukasz Marzec: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software,

Validation, Investigation, Visualization, Writing - original draft.
Zbigniew Bulin
ski: Supervision, Conceptualization, Investigation,
Project administration, Writing - review & editing. Tomasz Kry-

ski: Supervision, Writing - review & editing.
sin

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing

financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

The research has been supported by the National Science Centre,

Poland within OPUS scheme under contract number UMO-2017/27/
B/ST8/02298.

Nomenclature
Fig. 18. Link to the animation playlist (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?
list¼PLgsmU61_kKI8PunTQ_32ytnSNT5am86wI).
Cp turbine power coefficient
Ct turbine torque coefficient
D external rotor diameter, m
5. Conclusions H rotor height, m
p pressure, Pa
The paper presents fully coupled FSI model of the operation of t time, s
the Savonius wind turbine under high wind speed. Obtained results u velocity vector, m/s
showed that deformation of the turbine rotor influence signifi- w∞ wind velocity, m/s
cantly its performance, it causes increase in turbine performance,
though. Even for moderate wind speed as 15m=s the coefficient of Greek symbols
performance increases by around 5% comparing to the non- r density, kg/m3
deformable rotor. m dynamic viscosity coefficient, Pa
Moreover, the influence of the centrifugal force on the obtained n kinematic viscosity coefficient, kg/(s,m)
results is analysed in this paper. It was shown that for such a small t shear stress tensor in fluid, N/m2
wind turbine like the one analysed in this paper, the centrifugal s stress tensor in solid, N/m2
force cannot be neglected. For the FSI model without centrifugal u angular velocity vector, rad/s
force, significantly higher rotor deformations were observed
comparing to the FSI model with centrifugal force. Acronyms
Obtained results of computations in the form of animations are HAWT Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine
available as a supplementary material to this paper and through the VAWT Vertical Axis Wind Turbine
283

ski and T. Krysin
Ł. Marzec, Z. Bulin
ski Renewable Energy 164 (2021) 272e284

TSR Tip Speed Ratio
OR Overlap Ratio
FSI Fluid Structure Interaction
CFD Computational Fluid Dynamics
FEM Finite Element Method
FVM Finite Volume Method
URANS Unsteady Raynolds - Averaged Navier-Stokes equations
SST Shear Stress Transport
PRESTO Pressure Staggering Option
SIMPLE Semi Implicit Method for Pressure e Linked Equation
TSR Tip speed ratio
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2020.08.145.
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