A numerical approach to the treatment of submerged water exchange processes through the sluice gates of a tidal power plant

Abstract

Tidal power generation is a sustainable technology for electricity generation and is regulated by water exchange through the hydraulic structures of the tidal power plant (TPP). In the numerical modeling of tidal power generation, the water exchange rate through the sluice gate has previously been estimated based on the water level difference and was input for the entire water column as a two-dimensional boundary condition. However, in this study, a three-dimensional simulation method for the water exchange rate, including submerged hydrological conditions and the momentum of the surrounding flow, was applied. A new numerical approach to water exchange was applied in the idealized tests, and the subsequent model results showed high reproducibility for the orifice velocity field results from laboratory experiments. To verify the hydrodynamics with the actual region, a numerical model was configured for the Sihwa TPP and evaluated through comparison with observation data. The model not only accurately reproduced the temporal variability of the current velocity results, but also reliably reproduced the spatiotemporal flow patterns related to the jet-like and anticlockwise rotating flows. Therefore, to explain the complex, spatiotemporal, and asymmetric flow structure around TPP, high-resolution grid-based 3D modeling technology associated with the submerged sluice gate is needed.