Renewable Energy 42 (2012) 195e206

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Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Performance of horizontal axis tidal current turbine by blade conguration

Chul hee Joa, *, Jin young Yimb, Kang hee Leeb, Yu ho Rhob
a b

School of Engineering, Inha University, 253, Yonghyun-Dong, Nam-Gu, Incheon 402-751, Republic of Korea Graduate School, Department of Naval Architecture & Ocean Engineering, Inha University, 253, Yonghyun-Dong, Nam-Gu, Incheon 402-751, Republic of Korea

a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history: Received 10 March 2011 Accepted 9 August 2011 Available online 29 September 2011 Keywords: TCP (Tidal Current Power) Renewable energy Turbine design CWC (Circulating Water Channel) CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics)

a b s t r a c t
The west and south coastal region of Korea has very strong tidal current speeds and therefore accommodates many suitable sites for the application of TCP (Tidal Current Power). The maximum current speed recorded in the south is up to 6.5 m/s. Unlike other renewable energy sources, TCP is an extremely 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 current into the rotational energy. The design optimization of the rotor is very important to maximize the power production. The performance of the rotor can be determined by various parameters including the number of blades, shape, sectional size, hub, diameters etc. The blade of the rotor is one of the essential components which can convert tidal current energy into 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.

1. Introduction Tidal current power is now recognized as the main clean power resource in Korea where there are strong current regions in the west and south coasts. Many researchers have studied tidal current power systems. Garbuglia et al. (1993) and Paish et al. (1995) introduced a new concept of tidal stream power system with experiments in the sea [1,2]. Shiono et al. (1999) studied the Darrieus-type device [3]. Walsum (1999) introduced the current power system in Fundy [4]. Jo et al. (2008) published the experimental results on the applications of tidal current power systems in the cooling water weir [5]. To produce sufcient power, many device units are required in the power farm region. Due to the limited areas of the concentrated current, the arrangement of the devices is very important to maximize the efciency and economic viability of the farm. The optimization of arrangement is essential in the multi-arrayed formation. Jo et al. (2007) presented the

* Corresponding author. E-mail address: chjo@inha.ac.kr (C. hee Jo). 0960-1481/$ e see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.renene.2011.08.017

interference rates of axial, transverse and diagonal arrangements of rotors for changing incoming current speeds [6]. A turbine blade among components of a tidal current power generator is a core device that converts the ow of tidal current into a turning force. Technology acquisition on tidal current power turbine optimized design is difcult because currently, the literature on tidal current power (TCP) turbine design is insufcient and even developed countries avoid disclosing design technology. However, considering that a horizontal axis tidal current power turbine is based on the design theory of a horizontal axis wind power turbine and uid is changed into seawater in the air, it is possible to design a tidal current turbine in the sea based on the technique introduced in wind power. Performance evaluation methods on a tidal current power turbine are experimentally performed in the real sea by producing an actual product and a model test that carries out an experiment in a circulating water channel (CWC) by producing a model and computational uid dynamics (CFD) that simulates a CWC by using a computer. The model test has the advantage that it can obtain highly reliable data but it is expensive and requires a great deal of experience and time.

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C.hee Jo et al. / Renewable Energy 42 (2012) 195e206 Table 1 Specication of CWC. Main particular Length (m) Breadth (m) Height (m) Max.velocity (m/s) 6.0 1.0 3.0 1.2 Measuring section 2.3 1.0 0.9 -

Also, from an economic aspect, since a 3-piece blade can maintain stable disk characteristics, it is not necessary to design blades with more than 4 pieces. Therefore, this study designed a tidal current power turbine with a 3-piece blade. 2.2. Blade cross-sectional shape
Fig. 1. Gyroscopic imbalances.

On the other hand, CFD can obtain various results at low cost and is used in a variety of elds such as wind power and the uid machinery industry etc. This study evaluated the performance of a designed turbine by comparing performance analysis using CFD with the result of the model tested in a circulating water channel.

2. Determination of turbine design elements 2.1. Number and performance of turbine blade The factors that determine a modern blade are stability, efciency, and the economic feasibility of the system. In terms of stability, a disk is the most stable among rotating mechanical component parts and has a predictable shape. Compared to a 3-piece blade, for a 2-piece blade, since turbine production cost is low, installation is straightforward and the tip 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. However, since theoretical efciency is lower than that of a 3piece blade and the tip speed ratio is higher than that of a 3piece blade, considerable wake occurs and it therefore ranges from being unfavorable to complex and cavitation is highly likely to occur. Due to the nature of a 2-piece blade, when a blade tip crosses the 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 3piece 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.

There are several differences between an airfoil used in aerospace engineering and an airfoil of a tidal turbine blade. Since an airfoil for a tidal turbine blade is installed in water, when the water is polluted, the blade is not easy to maintain or repair. Therefore, an airfoil with a shape which is less sensitive to surface roughness is needed. In addition, because various loads are structurally imposed on the hub part, the wing tip must have a gradually thick airfoil shape. Also, unlike an aircraft, a wide range of data on the angle of attack is needed. The characteristics of a tidal current power turbine are very similar to those of a wind power turbine. While a tidal current power turbine uses a similar airfoil to that used in wind power, there is a signicant difference between the viscosity and density of air and seawater; a test and verication on the characteristics of an airfoil in seawater are therefore required. However, since the test and verication of this airfoil are beyond the scope of this paper, this study used the S814 airfoil (Fig. 2), previously adopted in other commonly used tidal current power turbines. 3. Design of a turbine blade 3.1. Determination of design velocity and turbine size Prior to the decision of the design current speed, an oceanographic survey on the tidal characteristics of an area where installation of a tidal current generator is proposed should be carried out.

Fig. 2. S814 Airfoil shape.

Fig. 3. Circulating Water Channel (Inha University ocean engineering lab).

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Fig. 4. Distributions of chord length.

Fig. 5. Angle denition of an airfoil.

This is because in the case of a large capacity turbine, the distribution of tidal current according to depth of water cannot be ignored and a control system that can respond to the angle in which currents ow should be considered. Also, a tidal current generator installed in the ocean, unlike wind power, has limitations of turbine size according to the depth of water of the installed generator. To design the current speed of a tidal current turbine, a velocity is chosen that can calculate the maximum amount of power generation in the target waters by considering the tide range in addition to data showing the direction and speed of the tidal current such as increase in wind power. This paper tries to compare and verify turbine performance measured in a circulating water channel experiment and predicted from CFD analysis. Therefore, the design current speed selected for the turbine is 1.0 m/s and the diameter of the turbine is 0.5 m by considering the specications of the circulating water channel of Table 1.

Fig. 6. Distribution of twist angle.

198 Table 2 TCP turbine blade design parameters. Design parameters Prated: rated power [W] Cp: Estimated power coefcient h: Estimated power coefcient Urated: Rated current velocity [m/s] r: Sea water density [kg/m3] l: Tip speed ratio D: Turbine diameter [m] N: Blade number [EA] u: Angular speed [rpm]

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Values 36.23 0.4 0.9 1.0 1025 5 0.5 3 191

Table 3 TCP turbine blade design result. No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 r/R 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30 0.35 0.40 0.45 0.50 0.55 0.60 0.65 0.70 0.75 0.80 0.85 0.90 0.95 1.00 r [mm] 12.5 25.0 37.5 50.0 62.5 75.0 87.5 100.0 112.5 125.0 137.5 150.0 162.5 175.0 187.5 200.0 212.5 225.0 237.5 250.0 Chord length [mm] 30.000 Transition 63.100 60.363 57.624 54.913 52.202 49.490 46.779 44.067 41.356 38.645 35.933 33.222 30.510 27.799 25.088 22.376 Twist angle [degrees] Transition 16.682 13.929 11.462 9.783 8.432 7.324 6.404 5.631 4.974 4.415 3.942 3.784 3.550 3.247 3.092 3.062

Fig. 9. Solid 3D model of TCP turbine [ISO view].

Fig. 10. 3D model of TCP turbine [Top view].

Fig. 11. Computational domain of turbine.

Fig. 7. Framework of TCP turbine blade [ISO view].

Fig. 8. Framework of TCP turbine blade [Top view].

Fig. 12. Grid system of rotor.

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3.2. Decision of output and rated number of rotations

C
To estimate the power of a testing blade, substitute the following values in Eq. (1). When an estimated power coefcient (Cp) is 0.4, the power train efciency coefcient (h) is 0.9, the seawater density (r) is 1025[kg/ m3], the diameter of the turbine (D) is 0.5 m, the velocity (U) is 1 m/ s, and the expected output of the turbine is 36.23[W].

   16pr 1 R sin2 tan1 lr CL B 3

(4)

Pexpect hCp

rpD2 U 3
8

! (1)

The design tip speed ratio (TSR, l) is 5 and the rated number of rotations is 191 rpm.

3.3. Correction of coefcient of loss of blade tip Tip loss occurs due to the vortex of blade wing tip. In order to predict tip loss Eq. (2) presented by Ludwig Prandtl in 1919 was applied to the tip loss prediction model.

C: chord length B: number of blade pieces (3) l: Tip speed ratio (5) R: entire rotor radius of a blade (0.5 m) r: a blade radius of the airfoil Fig. 4 shows the blade chord length calculated by the Schmitz numerical formula. If the Schmitz numerical formula is used as it is, the chord length is innitely larger as it extends to the root part, which is where structural defects will occur. Therefore, chord length should be determined as shown in Fig. 3 by approximating linearly based on a distance of 30% from the blade tip by considering structural defect settlement, ease of manufacture and economic feasibility. 3.5. Distribution determination of twist angle The denition on the angle of a blade element is as shown in Fig. 5. a is the angle of attack of an airfoil and F is the uid inlet angle and is dened as the uid inlet direction (UN(1 a)) and relative tangential velocity of uid by rotation of a blade Ur(1 a0 ). The twist angle b is dened so that the sectional airfoil of a blade can have an optimal life force coefcient depending on the radius of the rotor, as for the following Eq. (5).

ftip

 p  2 2 cos1 eN=21m=m 1lm =1a

(2)

Here, m is the ratio of radial direction from hub to tip and is dened as r/R. R is the entire rotor radius of a blade and r is the blade radius of the airfoil. The axial direction velocity component of ow induced by the actuator disk is called where a is the axial ow induction factor and is expressed as Eq. (3).

  2 R a tan1 lr 3

(5)

Udisk UN aUN

(3)

b: Twist angle a: Angle of attack

This twist angle is expressed as a non linear value depending on the radius of the rotor and the calculated result is as shown in Fig. 6. 3.6. Tidal current turbine blade design result The nal design value of Table 3 was calculated based on the design parameter of Table 2. Point coordinates required to visualize a 3 D model were obtained and the frameworks were plotted as shown in Figs. 7 and 8 from the design information of Table 3 and modeled as shown in Figs. 9 and 10 by using CATIA, a 3D modeling program.

Since a, the axial ow induction factor, cannot be determined through repetitive calculation from the initial design stage, the ideal value of 1/3 induced from the Betz limit is applied. N refers to the number of blade wings and 3 pieces were applied.

3.4. Determination of chord length distribution The method for determining the chord length of an airfoil is generally decided by Eq. (4), as presented by Schmitz as follows.

Fig. 13. Cp curve.

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4. Performance analysis using CFD 4.1. Calculation conditions Fig. 11 shows the internal domain where a turbine rotates, the external domain where the uid ows and the boundary condition. The external domain was then modeled into a rectangular shape

the same as that for the Measuring Section of the circulating water channel for comparison with the experiment of the circulating water channel. The external domain is a rectangular parallelepiped of width 1 m, length 4.75 m, height 0.8 m and the internal rotation area is a cylinder of diameter 0.5 m and height 0.11 m.

Fig. 14. Rotor pressure distributions (Pressure side).

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Normal speed condition was used as an inlet condition of the external domain and the incoming velocity is 1.0 m/s, which is the design velocity. The external domain outlet area used an opening condition so that it can be calculated according to the ux change due to the turbine. The walls and oors of the external domain used wall conditions that were similar to the environment of the circulating water channel and the upper side used the free slip condition.

The general connect - frozen rotor condition was used as the interface condition of the meeting part of the internal rotating area and the external area, while the mesh connect method used the GGI condition. Also, the change of uid passing through the turbine can be calculated by using the wall condition on the surface of the turbine. And the torque values were calculated by ANSYS CFX Postprocessor.

Fig. 15. Rotor pressure distributions (Suction side).

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4.2. Mesh and turbulence model For the prediction of torque that occurs in the blade, a dense prism-layer was composed around the blade and the rest of the area was composed as a tetra-prism mesh. The turbine rotating area is an unstructured mesh consisting of 2,671,523 elements and 565,443 nodes and the external area surrounding the turbine is also unstructured mesh consisting of 169,819 nodes and 947,896 elements. Fig. 12 shows the composed grid system.

The turbulence model performed analysis by considering the unsteady ow eld around an airfoil and using an SST model. SST model can accurately predict size and onset of ow peel caused by an adverse pressure gradient by calculating the transport of turbulence shearing stress and the accuracy of analysis is obtained regardless of the y of the mesh because it can be easily extended into an automatic wall treatment. Calculation was performed with a duel core CPU (3.0 GHz*2) and the number of repetitive calculations was converged prior to the

Fig. 16. Blade pressure distributions.

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100 repetitive calculations. The condition of convergence determination is a margin of error of less than 104 and calculation performance on a single case required about 3 h. 4.3. CFD analysis result and review The performance curve of a tidal current turbine on a 1.0 m/s design velocity is shown in Fig. 13 by calculating the torque value in 6 analysis results from 2 to 7 of tip speed ratio.

The output coefcient showed to be more than 0.4 over a relatively wide range from tip speed ratio 3 to 7 and the maximum value of the output coefcient was calculated as about 0.51 in the section of tip speed ratio 5. Through CFD analysis, the pressure on the front and back sides of the turbine blade as shown in Figs. 14e19, the ambient pressure acting on the airfoil, the turbulence kinetic energy and the ow of streamline passing through the turbine were visualized.

Fig. 17. Blade Turbulence kinetic energy distributions.

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Figs. 16e18 show the values in airfoil section according to tip speed ratio and uid ows from top to bottom of the picture and the blade proceeds from right to left. Therefore, the upper airfoil of the picture shows the pressure side and the lower airfoil shows the suction side. The turbine designed in this paper is the lift type and uses lift caused by the pressure difference of uid according to the asymmetric shape of the cross section of the airfoil. For the acting face of the turbine shown in Fig. 14, as the tip speed ratio increases, the pressure in the region near the tip and the leading edge continues to increase and at tip speed ratio 7, negative pressure occurs at the tip part. For the suction side of the turbine as shown in Fig. 15, negative pressure continues to increase up to tip speed ratio 5 and then gradually the increase in negative pressure slows down. Comparing the pressure side with the suction side, the pressure difference of about 4.0 104[pa] occurs. For the pressure around the blade as shown in Fig. 16, as tip speed ratio increases, the pressure near the leading edge of the pressure side gradually increases and negative pressure of the suction side also gradually increases. Passing through tip speed ratio 5, a negative pressure occurs on the pressure side of the maximum thickness position and the pressure difference between the pressure side and suction side also decreases.

As the pressure difference decreases, the lift force decreases and the torque is reduced. At tip speed ratio 2 shown in Fig. 17, the uid inlet angle owing into the blade is larger because the tip speed ratio is low. Therefore, life force dramatically decreases because the angle of attack increases and a stall occurs. As tip speed ratio increases and reaches 5, it becomes closer to the angle of attack of the maximum lift to drag ratio and maximum lift force occurs. After passing tip speed ratio 5, as it moves toward the trailing edge of the blade, turbulence occurs because the uid does not ow along the surface and falls off and drag caused by turbulence reduces the torque of the turbine. Also in Fig. 18, the stall in tip speed ratio 2 can be observed and as tip speed ratio increases, it can be found that the uid inlet angle reduces. If the tip speed ratio becomes lower than 5, the blade is placed with a greater angle of attack than that of the maximum Lift-Drag ratio and as the angle of attack increases, a stall occurs and torque is reduced. If the tip speed ratio becomes greater than 5, lift decreases and torque is reduced because the angle of attack becomes smaller than that of maximum Lift-Drag ratio. From Fig. 19, the rotor streamline can be veried, which expands when passing through the turbine.

Fig. 18. Blade streamline and velocity distributions.

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Fig. 19. Rotor streamline distributions.

As tip speed ratio increases, the rotor streamline expands to the maximum at tip speed ratio 5 where maximum efciency appears. The wake caused by the turbine develops and becomes more complicated as the tip speed ratio increases. 5. Conclusions This study performed the shape design of a tidal current power turbine from turbine design theory and a 3-D ow analysis by CFD and the following conclusions were drawn.

A horizontal axis tidal current power turbine was designed with a diameter of 0.5 m using S814 airfoil by considering tip loss based on turbine design theory including blade element theory and this was embodied by using CATIA, a 3D modeling program. An output curve and torque curve were drawn by using ANSYS CFX V11 SP1, a commercial code, and performing 3-d ow analysis of a 3D model. At design ow 1.0 m/s, the maximum output coefcient was about 0.51 at tip speed ratio 5 and maximum torque was about 3.65 N-m at tip speed ratio 3.2.

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The inuence that ow phenomenon (pressure, speed, streamline distribution) around a turbine has on the tip speed ratio was investigated by analyzing the ow around the blade with a Post-processor. As tip speed ratio increases, negative pressure acting on the suction side increases and at a more than optimal tip speed ratio, the output decreases because negative pressure occurs on the pressure side. Also, at less than optimal tip speed ratio, output decreases due to turbulence on the suction side and over the optimal tip speed ratio, the output is reduced by the turbulence of the trailing edge and the signicantly generated wake affects the ow of uid. Acknowledgment This work was supported by the Human Resources Development of the Korea Institute of Energy, Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP) grant funded by the Korea Government Ministry of Knowledge Economy (No. 20094020100070).

This work is the outcome of a Manpower Development Program for Marine Energy by the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs (MLTM) References
[1] Garbuglia E. Exploitation of marine current energy; 1993. [2] Paish. Tidal stream energy zero-head hydropower. International conference on hydropower into the next century; 1995. [3] Shiono M. Experiments on the characteristics of Darrieus turbine for the tidal 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 international offshore and polar engineering conference; 1999. [5] Jo CH, Lee CH, Rho YH and Yim JY. Floating tidal current power application in cooling water channel. The Korean Association of Ocean Science and Technology Societies conference, Jeju, 2008; pp. 2184e2187. [6] Jo CH, Par KK and Im SW. Interaction of multi arrayed current power generations. International offshore and polar engineering conference, Lisbon; 2007, pp. 302e306.