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Flow past an accumulator unit of an underwater energy storage system: Three touching balloons in a floral configuration

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Abstract

An LES simulation of flow over an accumulator unit of an underwater compressed air energy storage facility was conducted. The accumulator unit consists of three touching underwater balloons arranged in a floral configuration. The structure of the flow was examined via three dimensional iso surfaces of the Q criterion. Vortical cores were observed on the leeward surface of the balloons. The swirling tube flows generated by these vortical cores were depicted through three dimensional path lines. The flow dynamics were visualized via time series snapshots of two dimensional vorticity contours perpendicular to the flow direction; revealing the turbulent swinging motions of the aforementioned shedding-swirling tube flows. The time history of the hydrodynamic loading was presented in terms of lift and drag coefficients. Drag coefficient of each individual balloon in the floral configuration was smaller than that of a single balloon. It was found that the total drag coefficient of the floral unit of three touching balloons, i.e. summation of the drag coefficients of the balloons, is not too much larger than that of a single balloon whereas it provides three times the storage capacity. In addition to its practical significance in designing appropriate foundation and supports, the instantaneous hydrodynamic loading was used to determine the frequency of the turbulent swirling-swinging motions of the shedding vortex tubes; the Strouhal number was found to be larger than that of a single sphere at the same Reynolds number.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Turbulence and Energy Laboratory, Centre for Engineering Innovation, University of Windsor, Ontario, N9B 3P4, Canada

    Ahmadreza Vasel-Be-Hagh, Rupp Carriveau & David S-K Ting

Authors
  1. Ahmadreza Vasel-Be-Hagh
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  2. Rupp Carriveau
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  3. David S-K Ting
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Correspondence to Ahmadreza Vasel-Be-Hagh.

Additional information

Ahmadreza Vasel-Be-Hagh received a BSc degree in Mechanical Engineering from Ferdowsi University (FUM) in 2008. After completing the MSc degree focusing on Lattice Boltzmann modeling, he was honoured to be awarded an Ontario Trillium Scholarship from the government of Ontario valued at 160,000$ to pursue his education in Canada. For his PhD research, he is conducting simulations in concert with laboratory experiments to investigate hydrodynamics of accumulators of compressed air for an underwater compressed air energy storage plant. He has published one text book, eight journal papers and six conference papers so far.

Rupp Carriveau is a director and associate professor in the Turbulence and Energy Laboratory at the University of Windsor, Lumley Centre For Engineering Innovation. His research focuses on clean energy generation, storage, and smart optimization. He works extensively with utilities, power, agricultural, and automotive industries. Dr. Carriveau is active on the Editorial Boards of Wind Engineering, International Advances in Energy Research, Advances in Life Sciences, and the International Journal of Sustainable Energy. He is also the President of the International Underwater Compressed Air Energy Storage Society.

David S-K Ting After receiving his PhD in Combustion from University of Alberta in 1995, he spent two years working on Flow-Induced Vibrations as a post-doctorate fellow at McGill before joining University of Windsor as an assistant professor. He is currently a professor in Mechanical, Automotive and Materials Engineering and the co-founder of the Turbulence & Energy Laboratory at the University of Windsor. Ting supervises students on a wide range of research projects involving Turbulence and/or Energy. To date, he has co/supervised over forty graduate students and co-authored over sixty journal papers.

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Vasel-Be-Hagh, A., Carriveau, R. & Ting, D.SK. Flow past an accumulator unit of an underwater energy storage system: Three touching balloons in a floral configuration. J. Marine. Sci. Appl. 13, 467–476 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11804-014-1277-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11804-014-1277-3

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