Numerical and experimental investigation on the performance of three newly designed 100 kW-class tidal current turbines

Abstract

Three types of 100 kW-class tidal stream turbines are proposed and their performance is studied both numerically and experimentally. Following a wind turbine design procedure, a base blade is derived and two additional blades are newly designed focusing more on efficiency and cavitation. For the three designed turbines, a CFD is performed by using FLUENT. The calculations predict that the newly designed turbines perform better than the base turbine and the tip vortex can be reduced with additional efficiency increase by adopting a tip rake. The performance of the turbines is tested in a towing tank with 700 mm models. The scale problem is carefully investigated and the measurements are compared with the CFD results. All the prediction from the CFD is supported by the model experiment with some quantitative discrepancy. The maximum efficiencies are 0.49 (CFD) and 0.45 (experiment) at TSR 5.17 for the turbine with a tip rake.

Keywords

• Tidal current turbine
• Horizontal axis turbine
• Power coefficient
• Tip speed ratio
• Tip rake
• Tip vortex cavitation
• Minimum allowable immersion for cavitation free
• Reynolds number effect