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Characterization of the mean flow field in the far wake region behind ocean current turbines

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Abstract

This paper forms, optimizes, and evaluates three numerical approaches for characterizing mean velocities in far wake region behind ocean current turbines. These approaches are derived from wake models originally developed for wind turbines and are referred here as the Larsen/Larsen, Larsen/Ainslie, and Jensen/Ainslie approaches based on the researchers originally credited with developing the expressions for dependence of the mean wake velocity on centerline and/or radial locations. The numerical coefficients utilized by these approaches are optimized to best match Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) generated wake velocity data. After optimizing the coefficients, this study finds that the Larsen/Ainslie and Jensen/Ainslie approaches best match the CFD generated flow data, with Larsen/Ainslie being the best match for an ambient turbulence intensity (TI) of 3% and Jensen/Ainslie being the best match for TIs of 6 and 9%.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and specifically the Energy, Power, Control and Networks (EPCN) program under Grant ECCS-1307889 ‘Collaborative Research: Optimized Harvesting of Hydrokinetic Power by Ocean Current Turbine Farms Using Integrated Control’.

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Correspondence to Parakram Pyakurel.

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Pyakurel, P., Tian, W., VanZwieten, J.H. et al. Characterization of the mean flow field in the far wake region behind ocean current turbines. J. Ocean Eng. Mar. Energy 3, 113–123 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40722-017-0075-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40722-017-0075-9

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