Partially Enclosed Vertical Axis Wind Turbine

The addition of a partial enclosure across half the front-facing swept area of a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine(VAWT) has been suggested to improve the coefficient of performance, but it undermines the multidirectional functionality. To quantify its potential gains and examine ways to mitigate the losses of unidirectional functionality, a Savonius blade VAWT with an independently rotating enclosure with a passive tail vane control was designed, assembled, and experimentally tested. After experimental testing, it was concluded that this particular enclosure shape drastically reduces the coefficient of performance of a VAWT with Savonius blades. However, the passive tail vane rotated the enclosure to the correct orientation regardless of the wind direction