Abstract
With the recent rise in importance of environmental issues, research on micro hydropower, a kind of renewable energy source, is being actively conducted. In this study, a micro tubular propeller turbine was selected for study of micro hydropower in pipes. Numerical analysis was conducted to evaluate the performance. Response surface methodology using design of experiments was performed to efficiently investigate the effect of the blade leading and trailing edge elliptic aspect ratios on the performance. The trailing edge configuration was found to be more related to the performance, because of the drastic pressure variation due to the stagnation point formed, regardless of the leading edge configuration. To improve the performance, a NACA airfoil was introduced. The results show that the flow became more stable than the reference model, and the efficiency was increased by 2.44%.
Highlights
In 2015, the Paris Agreement was adopted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as climate change was becoming a more serious problem worldwide [1]
The most efficient points of the elliptic aspect ratios of the blade leading and trailing edge derived through the Genetic algorithm (GA) were calculated as 5.5 and 16, respectively
To verify the predicted point, numerical analysis was conducted with the calculated elliptic aspect ratios of the blade edges
Summary
In 2015, the Paris Agreement was adopted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as climate change was becoming a more serious problem worldwide [1]. Hydropower generates electricity by rotating a hydro turbine using a head of the water, and it has the advantage that it does not produce carbon dioxide at all, while offering high energy density [10]. Chen et al [22] developed a vertical axis turbine to generate power from water pipelines, and conducted numerical analysis and experimental tests for over 20 models through design variables, such as drag-type or lift-type turbine, and deflector configurations. Payambarpour et al [23] used a Savonius turbine as an in-line type hydro turbine, and improved the performance by adjusting design variables, such as deflector configurations and aspect ratio, through numerical analysis and experiments. Sinagra et al [27] adopted an in-line type crossflow turbine for pressure regulation and energy production, and verified the performance through numerical and experimental analysis.
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