Evolving a Bio-Inspired Blade Shape of the Drag-based Vertical-axis Wind Rotor Derived from Orange Sea-pen (Ptilosarcus Gurneyi)

Abstract

Abstract Inspired by the polyp leaf of the Orange sea-pen (Ptilosarcus gurneyi), a novel blade shape of the Savonius vertical-axis wind rotor is developed. The similarities between the aerodynamic and the hydrodynamic aspects of the Savonius rotor blade profile and the sea-pen leaf are reviewed, and an appropriate analogy is thereby established. The shape of the sea-pen leaf is then extracted to fabricate the rotor blades. The performance of this sea-pen bladed rotor is evaluated in a low-speed subsonic wind tunnel at different wind velocities. The two-dimensional (2D) numerical analysis is also performed to support the experimental findings and to study the influence of blade shape on the pressure and the torque distributions of the rotor. The novel sea-pen bladed rotor, having lesser material requirements, is seen to demonstrate higher performance than that of the conventional semicircular bladed rotor in the tested range of low tip-speed ratio.