• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• 제14권2호
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• pp.141-156
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• 2024

The turbine system converts the kinetic energy of water flow to electricity by rotating the rotor in a restricted waterway between the seabed and free surface. A turbine system's immersion depth and rotation direction are significantly critical in the turbine's performance along with the shape of the rotor. This study has investigated the hydrodynamic performance of the Savonius hydrokinetic turbine (SHT) according to the immersion depth and rotation direction using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. The instantaneous torque, torque coefficient, and power coefficients are calculated for the immersion ratios Z/D ranging [0.25, 3.0] and both clockwise (CW) and counterclockwise (CCW) rotations. A flow visualization around the rotor is shown to clarify the correlation between the turbine's performance and the flow field. The CFD simulations show that the CCW rotation produces a higher power at shallow immersion, while the CW rotation performs better at deeper immersion. The immersion ratio should be greater than the minimum of Z/D=1.0 to obtain the maximum power production regardless of the rotation direction.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• 제10권6호
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• pp.782-793
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• 2018

A small-scale horizontal axis hydrokinetic turbine is designed, manufactured and studied both experimentally and numerically in this study. The turbine is expected to work in most of China's sea areas where the ocean current velocity is low and to supply electricity for remote islands. To improve the efficiency of the turbine at low flow velocities, a magnetic coupling is used for the non-contacting transmission of the rotor torque. A prototype is manufactured and tested in a towing tank. The experimental results show that the turbine is characterized by a cut-in velocity of 0.25 m/s and a maximum power coefficient of 0.33, proving the feasibility of using magnetic couplings to reduce the resistive torque in the transmission parts. Three dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations, which are based on the Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations, are then performed to evaluate the performance of the rotor both at transient and steady state.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• 제46권1호
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• pp.83-92
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• 2024

In this study, first, we adopted a twin configuration of a Darrieus hydrokinetic turbines that can bring about an improvement in efficiency through positive interaction and obtained the optimal shape through parametric analysis of the small-scale turbine model by computational fluid dynamic simulations. Next, the effect of performance improvement was examined for symmetrical and asymmetrical ducts. The results show that the asymmetrical duct that utilizes diffusion effects has a comparative advantage in terms of efficiency and drag over the symmetrical one. However, the advantage of the Darrieus turbine, which has flow-directional independency, is lost in the case of the presented configuration; thus, we introduced the idea of a passive yaw-controller that adapts to the variation of the flow-direction that does not require additional energy consumption. In conclusion, such efforts and adjustments to enhance the performance of the Darrieus turbine by utilizing the interaction and diffusion effects discussed in this study will be helpful in securing competitiveness against other types of hydrokinetic turbines.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• 제8권1호
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• pp.73-82
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• 2016

In order to extend the operational life of Underwater Moored Platforms (UMPs), a horizontal axis water turbine is designed to supply energy for the UMPs. The turbine, equipped with controllable blades, can be opened to generate power and charge the UMPs in moored state. Three-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations are performed to study the characteristics of power, thrust and the wake of the turbine. Particularly, the effect of the installation position of the turbine is considered. Simulations are based on the Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations and the shear stress transport ${\kappa}-{\omega}$ turbulent model is utilized. The numerical method is validated using existing experimental data. The simulation results show that this turbine has a maximum power coefficient of 0.327 when the turbine is installed near the tail of the UMP. The flow structure near the blade and in the wake are also discussed.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• 제39권2호
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• pp.143-151
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• 2015

Recently, tidal current energy conversion is a promising way to harness the power of tides in order to meet the growing demands of energy utilization. A new concept of tidal current energy conversion device, named Vane Tidal Turbine (VTT), is introduced in this study. VTT has several special features that are potentially more advantageous than the conventional tidal turbines, such as propeller type tidal turbines. The purpose of this study on VTT is to analyze the possibility of extracting the hydrokinetic energy of tidal current and converting it into electricity, and evaluate the performance of turbines for various numbers of blades (six, eight and twelve) using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). At various tip-speed ratios (TSR), the six-bladed turbine obtains the highest power and torque coefficients, power efficiency is up to 28% at TSR = 1.89. Otherwise, the twelve blade design captures the smallest portion of available tidal current energy at all TSRs. However, by adding more blades, torque extracted from the rotor shaft of twelve-bladed turbine is more uniform due to the less interrupted generation of force for a period of time (one revolution).

• 한국유체기계학회 논문집
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• 제18권1호
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• pp.51-58
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• 2015

This paper presents a study on Vane Tidal Turbine (VTT) focusing on analysis of two types of blade arrangement originated from the previous studies where the original design was examined and performance-tested for different numbers of blades (six, eight and twelve). Compared to conventional tidal turbines, VTT has several special features and potential advantages which have been being thoroughly developed. The purpose of this study is to analyze VTT's capability of extracting and converting the hydrokinetic energy of tidal currents into electricity at given arrangement of blades (single and double rows, six and twelve blades) using CFD. From the calculation results, the six-blade single row turbine shows the best performance, in which the highest power and torque coefficients reach up to about 34 % and 36 %, respectively, at TSR=0.94. However, despite of lower power coefficient, by adding more blades, the torque's extraction of twelve-blade turbine, especially the double row type, is less fluctuate than that of the six-blade setups.

• 한국수소및신에너지학회논문집
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• 제33권1호
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• pp.95-104
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• 2022

Micro hydropower is a readily available renewable energy source that can be harvested utilizing hydrokinetic turbines from shallow water canals, irrigation and industrial channel flows, and run-off river stream flows. These sources generally have low head (<1 m) and low velocity which makes it difficult to harvest energy using conventional turbines. A horizontal-axis screw turbine was designed and numerically tested to extract power from such low-head water sources. The 3-bladed screw-type turbine is placed horizontally perpendicular to the incoming flow, partially submerged in a narrow water channel at no-head condition. The turbine hydraulic performances were studied using Computational Fluid Dynamics models. Turbine design parameters such as the shroud diameter, the hub-to-shroud ratios, and the submerged depths were obtained through a steady-state parametric study. The resulting turbine configuration was then tested by solving the unsteady multiphase free-surface equations mimicking an actual open channel flow scenario. The turbine performance in the shallow channel were studied for various Tip Speed Ratios (TSR). The highest power coefficient was obtained at a TSR of 0.3. The turbine was then scaled-up to test its performance on a real site condition at a head of 0.3 m. The highest power coefficient obtained was 0.18. Several losses were observed in the 3-bladed turbine design and to minimize losses, the number of blades were increased to five. The power coefficient improved by 236% for a 5-bladed screw turbine. The fluid losses were minimized by increasing the blade surface area submerged in water. The turbine performance was increased by 74.4% after dipping the turbine to a bottom wall clearance of 30 cm from 60 cm. The final output of the novel horizontal-axis screw turbine showed a 2.83 kW power output at a power coefficient of 0.63. The turbine is expected to produce 18,744 kWh/year of electricity. The design feasibility test of the turbine showed promising results to harvest energy from small hydropower sources.