Performance Study of Helical Darrieus Rotor

Nowadays, electrical power is crucial for all human activities. Several methods are available to produce the electrical energy. Small-scale hydropower is designated as a clean and renewable energy resource that maintain the biodiversity of natural environment. Hydrokinetic rotors are broadly classified based on the rotation axis into two major categories, horizontal axis hydrokinetic rotors and vertical axis hydrokinetic rotors. Although horizontal axis hydrokinetic rotors remain to be commercially appropriate for large-scale hydropower generation, vertical axis hydrokinetic rotors work at low water velocity and are suitable for small-scale hydropower production. Among the vertical axis water turbines, the Darrieus rotors make use for a specific implementation because they are economic and independent to the water direction. Therefore, many investigations have been realized to boost its efficiency. In this work, experimental tests realized in an irrigation canal were performed with a 3D printed Darrieus rotor. With the intention of the performance betterment of the studied rotor, a novel blade shape namely V-shaped blade was tested numerically using the commercial software ANSYS FLUENT 17.0. The maximum value of the power coefficient of the Darrieus rotor reaches 0.17 using twisted blades. However, using V-shaped blades, the highest value of the power coefficient gets at 0.185.