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Experimental and numerical study of a flapping-blade vertical-axis hydrokinetic turbine under free surface deformation and blockage effects

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Abstract

Hydrokinetic turbine proximity to deformable free surface in shallow open surface flume has significant impacts on flow hydrodynamics around the turbine, affecting the hydrodynamic performance of the hydrokinetic turbine. Also, the free surface deformation extent depends on the flow restriction created by the turbine, which works as a barrier to the fluid flow. This phenomenon is called solid blockage or formally the blockage. The present investigation aims to assess the effects of blockage and free surface deformation on flow hydrodynamics around a flapping-blade vertical-axis hydrokinetic turbine called “Hunter turbine.” A 1:20 Hunter turbine model was fabricated and experimentally investigated in a laboratory altogether with transient CFD simulations. The simulation was carried out for both rigid lid surfaces and free surface assumptions, while k–ω SST turbulence model was used for both cases, and the volume-of-fluid method was employed for the free surface model. Simulations results were verified by empirical data, showing a good agreement. The power coefficient reached 0.23 in the best-case scenario, and the maximum power coefficient occurs at a flow coefficient between 0.39 and 0.43 for all investigated flows. CFD results demonstrated that the flow deformation blockage ratio increment leads to greater exerted torque on the turbine blades. While the mean torque coefficient for the rigid lid is bounded up to 0.18, the mean torque coefficient in the presence of the free surface reaches 0.4 at the same blockage. Also, the power coefficient is increased by 10%. Furthermore, rigid lid surface simulation shows that increasing the blockage ratio also increases power coefficient such that the power coefficient at blockage ratio 0.32 is approximately three times larger than the power coefficient at blockage ratio 0.2.

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Abbreviations

\(P\) :

Power

\(U\) :

Incident flow velocity

\(g\) :

Gravitational acceleration

\({\text{Fr}}_{\mathrm{C}}\) :

Open-channel flow Froude number

\(R\) :

Drum radius

\(R_{\text{C}}\) :

The distance between the drum and the center of the drum axis and center of the blade chord when the blade is completely open

\(A\) :

The projected area of the turbine

\(C_{\text{P}}\) :

Pressure coefficient

\(C_{\text{Pow}}\) :

Power coefficient

\(C_{\text{Q}}\) :

Torque coefficient

\(Q\) :

Torque

\(w\) :

Channel width

\(h\) :

Channel height

\(h_{\text{w}}\) :

Fluid flow depth

\({\text{BR}}\) :

Blockage ratio

\(\rho\) :

Water density

\(\theta\) :

Turbine rotation angle

\(\omega\) :

Turbine angular velocity

\(\phi\) :

Flow coefficient

\(\vartheta\) :

Kinematic viscosity

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to express their deepest gratitude toward all who provided moral support and encouraged them during this research.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST), Narmak, Tehran, 1684613114, Iran

    S. M. Hashemi, M. Moghimi & S. Derakhshan

Authors
  1. S. M. Hashemi
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  2. M. Moghimi
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  3. S. Derakhshan
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Contributions

The authors have provided an equal contribution in preparing all parts of this research including experiments, numerical studies, and writing this article.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to M. Moghimi.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Editorial responsibility: M. Abbaspour.

We would like to thank IUST fluid mechanics lab for the support in experiment activities.

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Hashemi, S.M., Moghimi, M. & Derakhshan, S. Experimental and numerical study of a flapping-blade vertical-axis hydrokinetic turbine under free surface deformation and blockage effects. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 17, 3633–3650 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-020-02642-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-020-02642-y

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