On the Performance of Small-Scale Horizontal Axis Tidal Current Turbines. Part 1: One Single Turbine

Ramin Alipour, Roozbeh Alipour, Seyed Saeid Rahimian Koloor, Michal Petrů and Seyed Alireza Ghazanfari
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Ramin Alipour: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mahshahr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Mahshahr, Iran
Roozbeh Alipour: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mahshahr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Mahshahr, Iran
Seyed Saeid Rahimian Koloor: Institute for Nanomaterials, Advanced Technologies and Innovation, Technical University of Liberec, Studentska 2, Liberec 461 17, Czech Republic
Michal Petrů: Institute for Nanomaterials, Advanced Technologies and Innovation, Technical University of Liberec, Studentska 2, Liberec 461 17, Czech Republic
Seyed Alireza Ghazanfari: High-Speed Reacting Flow Laboratory, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, UTM Skudai 81310, Malaysia

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 15, 1-25

Abstract: The blade number of a current tidal turbine is one of the essential parameters to increase the stability, performance and efficiency for converting tidal current energy into rotational energy to generate electricity. This research attempts to investigate the effect of blade number on the performance of a small-scale horizontal tidal current turbine in the case of torque, thrust coefficient and power coefficient. Towards this end and according to the blade element momentum theory, three different turbines, i.e., two, three and four-bladed, were modeled using Solidworks software based on S-814 airfoil and then exported to the ANSYS-FLUENT for computational flow dynamics (CFD) analysis. SST-K-ω turbulence model was used to predict the turbulence behavior and several simulations were conducted at 2 ≤ tip speed ratio ≤ 7. Pressure contours, turbulence kinetic energy contours, cut-in-speed-curves, and streamlines around the blades and rotors were extracted and compared to provide an ability for a deep discussion on the turbine performance. The results show that in the case of obtainable power, the optimal value of tip speed ratio is around 5, so that the maximum power was achieved for the four-bladed turbine. Out of optimal condition, higher blade number and lower blade number turbines should be used at less than and greater than the optimal values of tip speed ratio, respectively. The results of simulations for the three-bladed turbine were validated against the experimental data with good agreement.

Keywords: tidal energy; horizontal axis tidal current turbine; TSR; power coefficient; CFD analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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