Abstract
Marine hydrokinetic turbines experience non-uniform inflow conditions due currents, geometrical changes in water boundaries, objects located upstream in the flow, and flow disturbances from other marine turbines when multiple units are installed. This paper reports on a series of water tunnel testing to investigate the performance of a two bladed squirrel cage vertical marine kinetic turbine that more closely simulates an array of turbines with one diameter center to canter spacing operating in the wake zone. It provides general results how their performance is affected by wake structures. In this study wakes are created by different sizes of circular cylinders placed at various longitudinal and lateral upstream locations. Results show that a cylinder placed 1.5 diameters upstream of a turbine and centered with the turbine rotational axis has the most power reduction effect. However, moving the cylinders laterally moderates the negative effect of an upstream cylinder and can even improve the performance of a turbine by up to 35% in a laboratory setting due to velocity enhancements on the high torque region of the rotating blade.
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