Comparison of the Power Extraction Performance of an Oscillating Hydrofoil Turbine with Different Deflector Designs

Abstract

The unsteady RANS equations for a two-dimensional hydrofoil were solved using ANSYS Fluent to model and simulate the hydrofoil at a constant Reynolds number, Re, of 2 × 105 and a fixed reduced frequency, f*, of 0.14. The simulations were performed by varying parameters, such as the number of deflectors N, tilt angle of the deflectors β, and vertical spacing of the deflectors J* = J/c, to determine the effect of the upstream deflector’s position on the hydrofoil’s performance. The results demonstrated that the deflector was effective at redirecting the separated flow away from the edges, which was then amplified downstream before colliding with the leading edge of the oscillating hydrofoil to increase power extraction. The performance of the oscillating hydrofoil was highly reliant on all three studied parameters. The hydrofoil with two deflectors (N = 2) displayed marginally superior power extraction capability compared to the hydrofoil with a single deflector (N = 1). Furthermore, the hydrofoil with the rightward inclined deflector at a low tilt angle (−5° ≥ β ≥ −10°) exhibited relatively better power extraction performance than the others. The best deflector design increased the hydrofoil’s cycle-averaged power coefficient by approximately 32% compared to a hydrofoil without a deflector. The vortex structures revealed that the flow evolution and power extraction performance were dependent on the size, robustness, and growth rate of the leading edge vortex (LEV) as well as the timing of LEV separation. The power extraction efficiency of an oscillating hydrofoil increased in the mid downstroke and upstroke due to the formation of a more robust LEV when the hydrofoil–deflector interaction was advantageous, but it dropped in the wing reversal due to the early separation of the LEV when the hydrofoil–deflector interaction was counterproductive.