3-Dimensional CFD simulation and analysis on performance of a micro-wind turbine resembling lotus in shape

• A micro-wind turbine was first designed to imitate lotus based on the Savonius wind rotor.
• The performance for the each section of the blades was discussed and analyzed by computational fluid dynamics.
• The results show that the semi-circular wind rotor runs more smoothly.

To minimize the visual impact, a micro-wind turbine was first designed to imitate lotus based on the Savonius type vertical axis wind rotor. It mainly consists of static blades (hereinafter referred to as “guide blades”) and rotor blades (hereinafter referred to as “semi-circular blades”). In the present paper, researches neglected the impact of the guide blades on the performance of the micro-wind turbine. The performance of the micro-wind rotor with semi-circular blades was compared to that of Savonius rotors with either semi-cylindrical or helically twisted blades by computational fluid dynamics. The performance for the each section of the semi-circular blades was discussed and analyzed. The results show that the performance of the wind rotor with semi-circular blades is comparable to that of the semi-cylindrical wind rotor, and is slightly lower than that of the helically twisted wind rotor. However, the semi-circular wind rotor runs more smoothly.