The effect of rectangulargurney flap on wells turbine performance

Abstract

Wells turbine is very adept at converting pneumatic power from ocean waves into mechanical energy. However, such turbines incur from low performance, limited operating range and low efficiency. The present study introduces a method to enhance the power produced from Wells turbine by implementing rectangular Gurney flap (GF). The Gurney flap is placed on both pressure and suction sides of the trailing edge (TE) and perpendicular to the chord line without change chord length. GF increases the lift coefficient by altering the Kutta condition at the TE. The turbine performance is herein evaluated by solving numerically 3D incompressible Reynolds Averaged Navier–Stokes equations (RANS) by using ANSYS Fluent 19.0. The performance is demonstrated according to the flow coefficient, torque coefficient, total pressure loss coefficient, and the turbine efficiency, as well as the velocity and pressure fields around the turbine blades. The validation of the present work was achieved using previous experimental work and CFD work by using SST k – ω turbulence model. The present work showed that the Wells turbine augmented with GF increases the torque coefficient by 41.98%. Besides, the stall has been delayed compared with the conventional Wells turbine.