Effect of slope and number of blades on Archimedes screw generator power output

Guilhem Dellinger, Scott Simmons, William David Lubitz, Pierre-André Garambois and Nicolas Dellinger

Renewable Energy, 2019, vol. 136, issue C, 896-908

Abstract: A computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulation of an Archimedes screw generator (ASG) was carried out in conjunction with laboratory-scale experiments to determine the effect of inclination angle and number of blades on ASG power production and performance. Good agreement was found between the model and experiment; the CFD model had relative errors in hydraulic efficiency of less than 2% in optimal cases. Both the experiments and CFD simulations were carried out for inclination angles between 10° and 38°. Afterwards CFD was used to simulate the effect of three different numbers of blades (3, 4 and 5) of an ASG with common design parameters. Overflow and gap leakage losses were found to increase at higher inclinations - these losses decreased with the addition of blades. For this particular ASG setup, the 5-bladed screw generated the most power. The 4 and 5-bladed screws had their highest efficiencies at inclination angles between 20° and 24.5°. The 3-bladed screw was found to have its highest efficiencies at comparatively lower inclination angles, with the simulations finding the optimal angle to be approximately 15.5°. Both CFD simulations and the experiments showed that overflow leakage started to happen much sooner at higher inclination angles, as expected.

Keywords: Archimedes screw generator; Computational fluid dynamics; Microhydro generation; Inclination angle; Slope; Number of blades; Efficiency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:136:y:2019:i:c:p:896-908

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2019.01.060

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