Abstract
Oscillating water column (OWC) is the most widely used wave energy converting technology in the world. The impulse turbine is recently been employed as the radial turbine in OWC facilities to convert bidirectional mechanical air power into electricity power. 3D numerical model for the impulse turbine is established in this paper to investigate its operating performance of the designed impulse turbine for the pilot OWC system which is under the construction on Jeju Island, Republic of Korea. The proper mesh style, turbulence model, and numerical solutions are employed to study the velocity and air pressure distribution especially around the rotor blade. The operating coefficients obtained from the numerical simulation are compared with corresponding experimental data, which demonstrates that the 3D numerical model proposed here can be applied to the research of impulse turbines for OWC system. Effects of tip clearances on flow field distribution characteristics and operating performances are also studied.
Highlights
Oscillating water column (OWC) is the most widely used wave energy technology in the world
It was first investigated for the tip clearance of impulse turbine by 3D numerical model, which has been reported by Thakker and Dhanasekaran [5] that the turbine with 0.25 tip clearance performed almost similar to the case of without tip clearance for entire flow coefficients
The present paper focused on the numerical simulation of optimized impulse turbine performance, which has been validated by the corresponding experimental data
Summary
Oscillating water column (OWC) is the most widely used wave energy technology in the world. The self-starting characteristics and operating performance of the Wells turbine in irregular waves are studied by experimental and numerical methods in [3]. The fitting formula is used, which is derived from laboratory research on the flat plate as the Wells turbine’s pressure drop substitute It was first investigated for the tip clearance of impulse turbine by 3D numerical model, which has been reported by Thakker and Dhanasekaran [5] that the turbine with 0.25 tip clearance performed almost similar to the case of without tip clearance for entire flow coefficients. 3D air velocity and pressure distributions along the flow path are simulated numerically and operating coefficients for various tip clearances are compared for the purpose to improve and optimize the design of impulse turbines The multiple reference frame and mixing plane models are utilized for setting up of numerical rotating machines, and RNG k-ε turbulence model is applied to deal with turbulent effects. 3D air velocity and pressure distributions along the flow path are simulated numerically and operating coefficients for various tip clearances are compared for the purpose to improve and optimize the design of impulse turbines
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