Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: The west and south coastal region of Korea has very strong tidal current speeds and therefore accom-
Received 10 March 2011 modates many suitable sites for the application of TCP (Tidal Current Power). The maximum current
Accepted 9 August 2011 speed recorded in the south is up to 6.5 m/s. Unlike other renewable energy sources, TCP is an extremely
Available online 29 September 2011
reliable, predictable and continuous energy source as the current pattern and speed can be predicted
throughout the year. One of the essential components in a TCP device is the rotor converting the inow
Keywords:
current into the rotational energy. The design optimization of the rotor is very important to maximize the
TCP (Tidal Current Power)
power production. The performance of the rotor can be determined by various parameters including the
Renewable energy
Turbine design
number of blades, shape, sectional size, hub, diameters etc.
CWC (Circulating Water Channel) The blade of the rotor is one of the essential components which can convert tidal current energy into
CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) rotational energy to generate electricity. The variable blade properties determine the performance,
efciency and stability of the turbine system. This paper presents the design procedure for a 300 kW tidal
current turbine blade. The HAT turbine model was designed based on the wind mill turbine design
principles together with known turbine theories. To verify the compatibility of the turbine design
method and to analyze the properties of design factors, the 3D CFD model was applied with the ANSYS
CFX program. The characteristics and performances of the blades can be applied in the design of 300 KW
and larger capacity TCP rotors.
2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
0960-1481/$ e see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.renene.2011.08.017
196 C.hee Jo et al. / Renewable Energy 42 (2012) 195e206
Table 1
Specication of CWC.
Fig. 1. Gyroscopic imbalances. There are several differences between an airfoil used in aero-
space engineering and an airfoil of a tidal turbine blade.
On the other hand, CFD can obtain various results at low cost Since an airfoil for a tidal turbine blade is installed in water,
and is used in a variety of elds such as wind power and the uid when the water is polluted, the blade is not easy to maintain or
machinery industry etc. repair. Therefore, an airfoil with a shape which is less sensitive to
This study evaluated the performance of a designed turbine by surface roughness is needed. In addition, because various loads are
comparing performance analysis using CFD with the result of the structurally imposed on the hub part, the wing tip must have
model tested in a circulating water channel. a gradually thick airfoil shape.
Also, unlike an aircraft, a wide range of data on the angle of
attack is needed.
2. Determination of turbine design elements The characteristics of a tidal current power turbine are very
similar to those of a wind power turbine. While a tidal current
2.1. Number and performance of turbine blade power turbine uses a similar airfoil to that used in wind power,
there is a signicant difference between the viscosity and density of
The factors that determine a modern blade are stability, ef- air and seawater; a test and verication on the characteristics of an
ciency, and the economic feasibility of the system. airfoil in seawater are therefore required.
In terms of stability, a disk is the most stable among rotating However, since the test and verication of this airfoil are beyond
mechanical component parts and has a predictable shape. the scope of this paper, this study used the S814 airfoil (Fig. 2),
Compared to a 3-piece blade, for a 2-piece blade, since turbine previously adopted in other commonly used tidal current power
production cost is low, installation is straightforward and the tip turbines.
speed ratio when maximum efciency occurs is high, the gear cost
of the gear box can be lowered and the size of the generator can be
reduced. 3. Design of a turbine blade
However, since theoretical efciency is lower than that of a 3-
piece blade and the tip speed ratio is higher than that of a 3- 3.1. Determination of design velocity and turbine size
piece blade, considerable wake occurs and it therefore ranges
from being unfavorable to complex and cavitation is highly likely to Prior to the decision of the design current speed, an oceano-
occur. graphic survey on the tidal characteristics of an area where instal-
Due to the nature of a 2-piece blade, when a blade tip crosses the lation of a tidal current generator is proposed should be carried out.
tower while rotating, a strong impact is applied to the turbine due
to the tower effect and the turbine is vibrated because gyroscopic
imbalances occur as shown in Fig. 1.
In order to resolve these imbalances, a separate device is needed
and the turbine will become complicated structurally.
A 3-piece blade is a rotation element of a turbine and satises
the number of stable minimum wings required of a disk. For a 3-
piece blade, the start ow velocity is low compared to a 2-piece
blade and ranges from favorable to complex due to the lower
effect of the wake.
Fig. 2. S814 Airfoil shape. Fig. 3. Circulating Water Channel (Inha University ocean engineering lab).
C.hee Jo et al. / Renewable Energy 42 (2012) 195e206 197
Table 2
TCP turbine blade design parameters.
Fig. 8. Framework of TCP turbine blade [Top view]. Fig. 12. Grid system of rotor.
C.hee Jo et al. / Renewable Energy 42 (2012) 195e206 199
The nal design value of Table 3 was calculated based on the design
3.4. Determination of chord length distribution parameter of Table 2. Point coordinates required to visualize a 3 D
model were obtained and the frameworks were plotted as shown in
The method for determining the chord length of an airfoil is Figs. 7 and 8 from the design information of Table 3 and modeled as
generally decided by Eq. (4), as presented by Schmitz as follows. shown in Figs. 9 and 10 by using CATIA, a 3D modeling program.
4. Performance analysis using CFD the same as that for the Measuring Section of the circulating water
channel for comparison with the experiment of the circulating
4.1. Calculation conditions water channel.
The external domain is a rectangular parallelepiped of width
Fig. 11 shows the internal domain where a turbine rotates, the 1 m, length 4.75 m, height 0.8 m and the internal rotation area is
external domain where the uid ows and the boundary condition. a cylinder of diameter 0.5 m and height 0.11 m.
The external domain was then modeled into a rectangular shape
Normal speed condition was used as an inlet condition of the The general connect - frozen rotor condition was used as the
external domain and the incoming velocity is 1.0 m/s, which is the interface condition of the meeting part of the internal rotating area
design velocity. and the external area, while the mesh connect method used the GGI
The external domain outlet area used an opening condition so condition.
that it can be calculated according to the ux change due to the Also, the change of uid passing through the turbine can be
turbine. The walls and oors of the external domain used wall calculated by using the wall condition on the surface of the turbine.
conditions that were similar to the environment of the circulating And the torque values were calculated by ANSYS CFX Post-
water channel and the upper side used the free slip condition. processor.
4.2. Mesh and turbulence model The turbulence model performed analysis by considering the
unsteady ow eld around an airfoil and using an SST model. SST
For the prediction of torque that occurs in the blade, a dense model can accurately predict size and onset of ow peel caused by
prism-layer was composed around the blade and the rest of the an adverse pressure gradient by calculating the transport of
area was composed as a tetra-prism mesh. The turbine rotating area turbulence shearing stress and the accuracy of analysis is obtained
is an unstructured mesh consisting of 2,671,523 elements and regardless of the y of the mesh because it can be easily extended
565,443 nodes and the external area surrounding the turbine is also into an automatic wall treatment.
unstructured mesh consisting of 169,819 nodes and 947,896 Calculation was performed with a duel core CPU (3.0 GHz*2) and
elements. Fig. 12 shows the composed grid system. the number of repetitive calculations was converged prior to the
100 repetitive calculations. The condition of convergence deter- The output coefcient showed to be more than 0.4 over a rela-
mination is a margin of error of less than 104 and calculation tively wide range from tip speed ratio 3 to 7 and the maximum
performance on a single case required about 3 h. value of the output coefcient was calculated as about 0.51 in the
section of tip speed ratio 5.
4.3. CFD analysis result and review Through CFD analysis, the pressure on the front and back
sides of the turbine blade as shown in Figs. 14e19, the ambient
The performance curve of a tidal current turbine on a 1.0 m/s pressure acting on the airfoil, the turbulence kinetic energy and
design velocity is shown in Fig. 13 by calculating the torque value in the ow of streamline passing through the turbine were
6 analysis results from 2 to 7 of tip speed ratio. visualized.
Figs. 16e18 show the values in airfoil section according to tip As the pressure difference decreases, the lift force decreases and
speed ratio and uid ows from top to bottom of the picture and the torque is reduced.
the blade proceeds from right to left. At tip speed ratio 2 shown in Fig. 17, the uid inlet angle owing
Therefore, the upper airfoil of the picture shows the pressure into the blade is larger because the tip speed ratio is low.
side and the lower airfoil shows the suction side. Therefore, life force dramatically decreases because the angle of
The turbine designed in this paper is the lift type and uses lift attack increases and a stall occurs.
caused by the pressure difference of uid according to the asym- As tip speed ratio increases and reaches 5, it becomes closer to
metric shape of the cross section of the airfoil. the angle of attack of the maximum lift to drag ratio and maximum
For the acting face of the turbine shown in Fig. 14, as the tip lift force occurs.
speed ratio increases, the pressure in the region near the tip and the After passing tip speed ratio 5, as it moves toward the trailing
leading edge continues to increase and at tip speed ratio 7, negative edge of the blade, turbulence occurs because the uid does not ow
pressure occurs at the tip part. along the surface and falls off and drag caused by turbulence
For the suction side of the turbine as shown in Fig. 15, negative reduces the torque of the turbine.
pressure continues to increase up to tip speed ratio 5 and then Also in Fig. 18, the stall in tip speed ratio 2 can be observed and as
gradually the increase in negative pressure slows down. tip speed ratio increases, it can be found that the uid inlet angle
Comparing the pressure side with the suction side, the pressure reduces.
difference of about 4.0 104[pa] occurs. If the tip speed ratio becomes lower than 5, the blade is placed with
For the pressure around the blade as shown in Fig. 16, as tip a greater angle of attack than that of the maximum Lift-Drag ratio and
speed ratio increases, the pressure near the leading edge of the as the angle of attack increases, a stall occurs and torque is reduced.
pressure side gradually increases and negative pressure of the If the tip speed ratio becomes greater than 5, lift decreases and
suction side also gradually increases. torque is reduced because the angle of attack becomes smaller than
Passing through tip speed ratio 5, a negative pressure occurs on the that of maximum Lift-Drag ratio.
pressure side of the maximum thickness position and the pressure From Fig. 19, the rotor streamline can be veried, which expands
difference between the pressure side and suction side also decreases. when passing through the turbine.
As tip speed ratio increases, the rotor streamline expands to the A horizontal axis tidal current power turbine was designed with
maximum at tip speed ratio 5 where maximum efciency appears. a diameter of 0.5 m using S814 airfoil by considering tip loss based
The wake caused by the turbine develops and becomes more on turbine design theory including blade element theory and this
complicated as the tip speed ratio increases. was embodied by using CATIA, a 3D modeling program.
An output curve and torque curve were drawn by using ANSYS
5. Conclusions CFX V11 SP1, a commercial code, and performing 3-d ow analysis
of a 3D model.
This study performed the shape design of a tidal current power At design ow 1.0 m/s, the maximum output coefcient was
turbine from turbine design theory and a 3-D ow analysis by CFD about 0.51 at tip speed ratio 5 and maximum torque was about
and the following conclusions were drawn. 3.65 N-m at tip speed ratio 3.2.
206 C.hee Jo et al. / Renewable Energy 42 (2012) 195e206
The inuence that ow phenomenon (pressure, speed, streamline This work is the outcome of a Manpower Development Program
distribution) around a turbine has on the tip speed ratio was inves- for Marine Energy by the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime
tigated by analyzing the ow around the blade with a Post-processor. Affairs (MLTM)
As tip speed ratio increases, negative pressure acting on the suction
side increases and at a more than optimal tip speed ratio, the output References
decreases because negative pressure occurs on the pressure side.
Also, at less than optimal tip speed ratio, output decreases due [1] Garbuglia E. Exploitation of marine current energy; 1993.
to turbulence on the suction side and over the optimal tip speed [2] Paish. Tidal stream energy zero-head hydropower. International conference on
hydropower into the next century; 1995.
ratio, the output is reduced by the turbulence of the trailing edge [3] Shiono M. Experiments on the characteristics of Darrieus turbine for the tidal
and the signicantly generated wake affects the ow of uid. power generation. Proceedings of the ninth international offshore and polar
engineering conference; 1999.
[4] Walsum W. Offshore engineering for tidal power. Proceedings of the ninth
Acknowledgment
international offshore and polar engineering conference; 1999.
[5] Jo CH, Lee CH, Rho YH and Yim JY. Floating tidal current power application in
This work was supported by the Human Resources Develop- cooling water channel. The Korean Association of Ocean Science and Tech-
ment of the Korea Institute of Energy, Technology Evaluation and nology Societies conference, Jeju, 2008; pp. 2184e2187.
[6] Jo CH, Par KK and Im SW. Interaction of multi arrayed current power genera-
Planning (KETEP) grant funded by the Korea Government Ministry tions. International offshore and polar engineering conference, Lisbon; 2007,
of Knowledge Economy (No. 20094020100070). pp. 302e306.