Abstract
This paper provides a summary of the work done at DPA on numerical and experimental investigations of a novel patented vertical axis and variable pitching blades hydro turbine designed to harness energy from marine tidal currents. Ponte di Archimede S.p.A. Company, located in Messina, Italy, owns the patented KOBOLD turbine that is moored in the Messina Strait, between the mainland and Sicily. The turbine has a rotor with a diameter of 6 meters, three vertical blades of 5 meters span with a 0.4 m chord ad hoc designed curved airfoil, producing high lift with no cavitation. The rated power is 160 kW with 3.5 m/s current speed, which means 25% global system efficiency. The VAWT and VAWT_DYN computer codes, based on Double Multiple Steamtube, have been developed to predict the steady and dynamic performances of a cycloturbine with fixed or self-acting variable pitch straight-blades. A theoretical analysis and a numerical prediction of the turbine performances as well as experimental test results on both a model and the real scale turbine will be presented and discussed.
Highlights
Marine current energy is a type of renewable energy resource that has been less exploited than wind energy
Horizontal axis turbines have been more widely used than vertical axis types for wind energy exploitation, vertical axis turbines could present significant advantages for tidal current exploitation, because they are simple to build and reliable in working conditions
The methods for calculating the hydrodynamic performances of vertical axis turbines come from wind turbines: in the 1970s Templin developed the Single-Disk Single-Tube model, and Strickland put forward the Single-Disk Multi-Tube model
Summary
Marine current energy is a type of renewable energy resource that has been less exploited than wind energy. As in the wind community, can be divided into vertical-axis and horizontal axis types. The blades of Darrieus-type vertical axis wind turbines are fixed, and they perform well when the blade solidity is low and the working speed is high. For this reason, the first hydro-turbines were impossible to start. The Kobold turbine has been under development since 1997: the rotor has a self-acting variable pitch and the Kobold blades have an ad hoc designed airfoil, called HLIFT, to be cavitation free and to have high lift performance. The VAWT and VAWT_DYN computer codes, based on this theory, have been developed to predict the steady and dynamic performances of a cycloturbine with fixed or self-acting variable pitch straight-blades. The numerical results have been compared with two sets of experimental data: one set is obtained from wind tunnel tests on a scaled model, and the other set is based on field data from the Kobold prototype
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