|
Abstract:
|
The performance of a horizontal axis marine current turbine is predicted by three numerical methods , vortex lattice method MPUF -3A , boundary element method PROPCAV and a commercial RANS solver FLUENT . The predictions are compared with the experimental measurements for the same turbine model . A fully unsteady wake alignment is utilized in order to model the realistic wake geometry of the turbine . A lifting line theory based method is developed to produce the optimum circulation distribution for turbines and propellers and a lifting line theory based database searching method is used to achieve the optimum circulation distribution for tidal turbines . A nonlinear optimization method (CAVOPT -3D ) and another database -searching design method (CAVOPT -BASE ) are utilized to design the blades of marine current turbines and marine propellers .
A design procedure for the tidal turbine is proposed by using the developed methods successively . Finally , an interactive viscous /potential flow method is utilized to analyze the effect of nonuniform inflow on the performance of tidal turbines . |