Performance and internal flow of a counter-rotating type tidal stream turbine

Abstract

In the past decade, the tidal energies have caused worldwide concern as it can provide regular and predictable renewable energy resource for power generation. The majority of technologies for exploiting the tidal stream energy are based on the concept of the horizontal axis propellers, which can be derived from the design and operation of wind turbines. However, there are some peculiar features such as the propeller working in the seawater with free surface and the possible occurrence of cavitation as compared with wind turbines. Especially, for a counter-rotating type tidal stream power turbine, it is difficult to accurately predict the interaction between the front and rear blades at the design stage by blade element momentum theory. As a result, CFD shows its advantage to predict the performance of counter-rotating type propellers of the tidal stream turbine. In order to improve the accuracy of CFD predictions, the predicted results must be verified with experimental values. In this paper, a CFD model using block-structured grid was set up and experimental test was performed in a water tunnel for a tidal stream turbine with counter-rotating type propellers. The comparison between CFD predictions and experimental data shows quite good agreement on the power coefficients, which provides an evidence of validation of the CFD model. Such results offer the necessary confidence in the accuracy of the set up CFD model for the counter-rotating type tidal stream turbine.