IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/renene/v109y2017icp332-345.html

Wake characteristics of a TriFrame of axial-flow hydrokinetic turbines

Author

Listed:
  • Chawdhary, Saurabh
  • Hill, Craig
  • Yang, Xiaolei
  • Guala, Michele
  • Corren, Dean
  • Colby, Jonathan
  • Sotiropoulos, Fotis

Abstract

An effective way to develop arrays of hydrokinetic turbines in river and tidal channels is to arrange them in TriFrame™ 1 configurations where three turbines are mounted together at the apexes of a triangular frame. This TriFrame can serve as a building block for rapidly deploying multi-turbine arrays. The wake structure of a TriFrame of three model turbines is investigated using both numerical simulations and experiments. In the numerical part, we employ large-eddy simulation (LES) with the curvilinear immersed boundary method (CURVIB) for fully resolving the turbine geometry details to simulate intra-turbine wake interactions in the TriFrame configuration. First, the computed results are compared with the experiments in terms of mean flow and turbulence characteristics with overall good agreement. The flow-fields are then analyzed to elucidate the mechanisms of turbine interactions and wake evolution in the TriFrame configuration. We found that the wake of the upstream TriFrame turbine exhibits unique characteristics indicating presence of the Venturi effect as the wake encounters the two downstream turbines. We finally compare the wakes of the TriFrame turbines with that of an isolated single turbine wake to further illustrate how the TriFrame configuration affects the wake characteristics and power production in an array of TriFrames.

Suggested Citation

  • Chawdhary, Saurabh & Hill, Craig & Yang, Xiaolei & Guala, Michele & Corren, Dean & Colby, Jonathan & Sotiropoulos, Fotis, 2017. "Wake characteristics of a TriFrame of axial-flow hydrokinetic turbines," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 332-345.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:109:y:2017:i:c:p:332-345
    DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2017.03.029
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148117302100
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.renene.2017.03.029?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hill, Craig & Musa, Mirko & Guala, Michele, 2016. "Interaction between instream axial flow hydrokinetic turbines and uni-directional flow bedforms," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 409-421.
    2. Malki, Rami & Masters, Ian & Williams, Alison J. & Nick Croft, T., 2014. "Planning tidal stream turbine array layouts using a coupled blade element momentum – computational fluid dynamics model," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 46-54.
    3. Pinon, Grégory & Mycek, Paul & Germain, Grégory & Rivoalen, Elie, 2012. "Numerical simulation of the wake of marine current turbines with a particle method," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 111-126.
    4. Batten, W.M.J. & Bahaj, A.S. & Molland, A.F. & Chaplin, J.R., 2008. "The prediction of the hydrodynamic performance of marine current turbines," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 1085-1096.
    5. Myers, L.E. & Bahaj, A.S., 2012. "An experimental investigation simulating flow effects in first generation marine current energy converter arrays," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 28-36.
    6. Stansby, Peter & Stallard, Tim, 2016. "Fast optimisation of tidal stream turbine positions for power generation in small arrays with low blockage based on superposition of self-similar far-wake velocity deficit profiles," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 366-375.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hachmann, Christoph & Stallard, Tim & Stansby, Peter & Lin, Binliang, 2021. "Experimentally validated study of the impact of operating strategies on power efficiency of a turbine array in a bi-directional tidal channel," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 1408-1426.
    2. Lo Brutto, Ottavio A. & Nguyen, Van Thinh & Guillou, Sylvain S. & Thiébot, Jérôme & Gualous, Hamid, 2016. "Tidal farm analysis using an analytical model for the flow velocity prediction in the wake of a tidal turbine with small diameter to depth ratio," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 347-359.
    3. Karina Soto-Rivas & David Richter & Cristian Escauriaza, 2019. "A Formulation of the Thrust Coefficient for Representing Finite-Sized Farms of Tidal Energy Converters," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-17, October.
    4. Niebuhr, C.M. & Schmidt, S. & van Dijk, M. & Smith, L. & Neary, V.S., 2022. "A review of commercial numerical modelling approaches for axial hydrokinetic turbine wake analysis in channel flow," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    5. Ramírez-Mendoza, R. & Murdoch, L. & Jordan, L.B. & Amoudry, L.O. & McLelland, S. & Cooke, R.D. & Thorne, P. & Simmons, S.M. & Parsons, D. & Vezza, M., 2020. "Asymmetric effects of a modelled tidal turbine on the flow and seabed," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 238-249.
    6. Fairley, I. & Masters, I. & Karunarathna, H., 2015. "The cumulative impact of tidal stream turbine arrays on sediment transport in the Pentland Firth," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 755-769.
    7. Clemente Gotelli & Mirko Musa & Michele Guala & Cristián Escauriaza, 2019. "Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Wake Interactions of Marine Hydrokinetic Turbines," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(16), pages 1-17, August.
    8. Zangiabadi, E. & Masters, I. & Williams, Alison J. & Croft, T.N. & Malki, R. & Edmunds, M. & Mason-Jones, A. & Horsfall, I., 2017. "Computational prediction of pressure change in the vicinity of tidal stream turbines and the consequences for fish survival rate," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 1141-1156.
    9. Ian Masters & Alison Williams & T. Nick Croft & Michael Togneri & Matt Edmunds & Enayatollah Zangiabadi & Iain Fairley & Harshinie Karunarathna, 2015. "A Comparison of Numerical Modelling Techniques for Tidal Stream Turbine Analysis," Energies, MDPI, vol. 8(8), pages 1-21, July.
    10. Yang, Xiaolei & Khosronejad, Ali & Sotiropoulos, Fotis, 2017. "Large-eddy simulation of a hydrokinetic turbine mounted on an erodible bed," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 1419-1433.
    11. Li, Xiaorong & Li, Ming & Jordan, Laura-Beth & McLelland, Stuart & Parsons, Daniel R. & Amoudry, Laurent O. & Song, Qingyang & Comerford, Liam, 2019. "Modelling impacts of tidal stream turbines on surface waves," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 725-734.
    12. Edmunds, Matt & Williams, Alison J. & Masters, Ian & Banerjee, Arindam & VanZwieten, James H., 2020. "A spatially nonlinear generalised actuator disk model for the simulation of horizontal axis wind and tidal turbines," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    13. Cooke, S.C. & Willden, R.H.J. & Byrne, B.W., 2016. "The potential of cross-stream aligned sub-arrays to increase tidal turbine efficiency," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 284-292.
    14. Van Thinh Nguyen & Alina Santa Cruz & Sylvain S. Guillou & Mohamad N. Shiekh Elsouk & Jérôme Thiébot, 2019. "Effects of the Current Direction on the Energy Production of a Tidal Farm: The Case of Raz Blanchard (France)," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(13), pages 1-20, June.
    15. Federico Attene & Francesco Balduzzi & Alessandro Bianchini & M. Sergio Campobasso, 2020. "Using Experimentally Validated Navier-Stokes CFD to Minimize Tidal Stream Turbine Power Losses Due to Wake/Turbine Interactions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-26, October.
    16. Donald R. Noble & Samuel Draycott & Anup Nambiar & Brian G. Sellar & Jeffrey Steynor & Aristides Kiprakis, 2020. "Experimental Assessment of Flow, Performance, and Loads for Tidal Turbines in a Closely-Spaced Array," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-17, April.
    17. Chen, Long & Yao, Yu & Wang, Zhi-liang, 2020. "Development and validation of a prediction model for the multi-wake of tidal stream turbines," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 800-809.
    18. Sentchev, Alexei & Thiébaut, Maxime & Schmitt, François G., 2020. "Impact of turbulence on power production by a free-stream tidal turbine in real sea conditions," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 147(P1), pages 1932-1940.
    19. Allmark, Matthew & Mason-Jones, Allan & Facq, Jean-Valery & Gaurier, Benoît & Germain, Gregory & O’Doherty, Tim, 2025. "Combined effects of yaw misalignment and inflow turbulence on tidal turbine wake development," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 324(C).
    20. Ramírez-Mendoza, R. & Amoudry, L.O. & Thorne, P.D. & Cooke, R.D. & McLelland, S.J. & Jordan, L.B. & Simmons, S.M. & Parsons, D.R. & Murdoch, L., 2018. "Laboratory study on the effects of hydro kinetic turbines on hydrodynamics and sediment dynamics," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 129(PA), pages 271-284.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:109:y:2017:i:c:p:332-345. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/renewable-energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.