Simulations of hydrokinetic turbines for marine current applications (as a continuation of project SNIC 2022/5-462)
Abstract
The project will perform studies on a water turbine (WT) by using ANSYS Fluent.
A prototype of the WT with 7.5 kW rated power designed by Marine Current research group at Uppsala University has been deployed in Söderfors. The WT can work with water flow from any direction without the need of a yawing mechanism which reduces the risk of failures and simplifies the installation. With the advancement of the WT’s concept, we need reliable simulation tools to analyses the physical quantities. Important parameters are the velocity field to see effect the turbine wake and tower and to determine the incoming flow on the hydrofoils, and also the blade forces, which determines the loads on the structure and the power generated by the turbine. Accurate modeling of the turbine in is therefore crucial to understand which aerodynamic phenomena can be correlated to the experimental trends. CFD calculations can provide further details of unsteady nature of the interactions within the turbine.
This will not have been possible without access to high-performance computing (HPC) resources like SNIC. We hope the results can lead to improved turbine performance and reliability.
