Abstract
The main object of this paper is to present the design and the results of an experimental test campaign on an innovative device for the exploitation of marine and river currents. The basic idea is to lay together one or more series of horizontal axis turbines in rows, each one connected to a generator placed on board a ship or a float. The whole system is sustained by a series of buoys, in this way is possible to avoid expensive submarine installations. All the work has been carried out at the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University of Naples "Federico II" and the test campaign has been first performed in the naval towing tank belonging to the same Department and then in real conditions in Messina Strait between Sicily island and mainland. This location is the only one in Italy suitable as test site thanks to a highly regular tidal current reaching a maximum speed of 3 m/s. The turbine's blade was first carefully designed with particular care for the cavitation problems. Two different series of experimental tests on a reduced scale model in the naval tank aimed to optimize the general layout of the device and the tests performed in Messina Strait mainly aimed to confirm the feasibility of the system and to evaluate its response in real operating conditions. The tests have confirmed the good dynamic behavior of the whole system and its feasibility to be scaled up to real scale.
Highlights
In this paper the design, realization and testing of an innovative device, developed in cooperation with research consortium Sea Power Scarl, for the exploitation of tidal and river current energy, will be described. not yet widely used, tidal power has potential for future electricity generation
There are some working prototypes in the world like Kobold [1] and GEM [2] developed at the Department of Industrial Engineering of our university, the KHPS system [3, 4] developed by Verdant Power, SeaGen [5, 6] developed by Marine Current Turbines (MCT), Clean Current turbines [7] and the Lunar Tidal Turbine (LTT) [8] developed by Lunar Energy
A first experimental test has been carried out in the towing tank of the Department of Industrial Engineering of our university in order to optimize the distances between the turbines without an excessive loss in efficiency of the whole system
Summary
In this paper the design, realization and testing of an innovative device, developed in cooperation with research consortium Sea Power Scarl, for the exploitation of tidal and river current energy, will be described. The Kobold system is a vertical axis and variable pitching blades hydro turbine; the GEM is an underwater vehicle linked to the seabed by means of a. Most of these installations, for the horizontal turbines case, require massive submarine foundations. The shaft goes out of the water and its end is connected to the electrical generator installed on a floating platform. In this way there is the further advantage to have all the delicate parts respect to the aggressive marine environment, out of the water. Shaft, were placed on a boat that has been in turn moored on the seabed
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