The hydrodynamic characteristics of free variable-pitch vertical axis tidal turbine are investigated by combining experimental and numerical simulations. The variations of hydrodynamics are obtained based on testing the kinematics and the dynamics of the turbine under different flow and structural conditions. Through analyzing the movement of the turbine and the characteristics of the flow field by numerical simulations, it is shown how the turbine＇s performance is improved.
为精确控制潮流能水轮机的输出功率与载荷,得到叶片安装角控制规律,基于动量叶素理论、粘性CFD数值模拟以及模型试验的方法,对1 k W水轮机模型在不同安装角度下的水动力性能进行研究,计算水平轴潮流能水轮机叶片在不同安装角下的水动力性能与载荷。数值模拟与理论计算的结果表明:叶片安装角度的改变对水轮机的输出功率与载荷均有较明显影响,并呈现一定规律;通过模型实验验证了数值模拟方法的可靠性。
The unsteady hydrodynamic characteristics of vertical axis tidal turbine are investigated by numerical simulation based on viscous CFD method. The starting mechanism of the turbine is revealed through analyzing the interaction of its motion and dynamics during starting process. The operating hydrodynamic characteristics of the turbine in wave-current condition are also explored by combining with the linear wave theory. According to possible magnification of the cyclic loads in the maximum power tracking control of vertical axis turbine, a novel torque control strategy is put forward, which can improve the structural characteristics significantly without effecting energy efficiency.
The objective of this study was to develop, as well as validate the strongly coupled method (two-way fluid structural interaction (FSI)) used to simulate the transient FSI response of the vertical axis tidal turbine (VATT) rotor, subjected to spatially varying inflow. Moreover, this study examined strategies on improving techniques used for mesh deformation that account for large displacement or deformation calculations. The blade's deformation for each new time step is considered in transient two-way FSI analysis, to make the design more reliable. Usually this is not considered in routine one-way FSI simulations. A rotor with four blades and 4-m diameter was modeled and numerically analyzed. We observed that two-way FSI, utilizing the strongly coupled method, was impossible for a complex model; and thereby using ANSYS-CFX and ANSYS-MECHANICAL in work bench, as given in ANSYS-WORKBENCH, helped case examples 22 and 23, by giving an error when the solution was run. To make the method possible and reduce the computational power, a novel technique was used to transfer the file in ANSYS-APDL to obtain the solution and results. Consequently, the results indicating a two-way transient FSI analysis is a time- and resource-consuming job, but with our proposed technique we can reduce the computational time. The ANSYS STRUCTURAL results also uncover that stresses and deformations have higher values for two-way FSI as compared to one-way FSI. Similarly, fluid flow CFX results for two-way FSI are closer to experimental results as compared to one-way simulation results. Additionally, this study shows that, using the proposed method we can perform coupled simulation with simple multi-node PCs (core i5).
