Numerical Simulation Of Vertical Axis Ocean Current Turbine With Cambered Airfoil

Ocean current power is a novel energy resource that can be harnessed by devices similar to wind turbine.Ocean makes up71%of the earth surface. It stores tremendous amount of energy which is clean and renewable.Based on studies on wind turbine, ocean current turbine has become a new focus of the frontier of energy industry.A few ocean current turbines have been manufactured and applied in practical use. Although the fundamentalsbetween wind turbine and ocean current turbine are very similar, plenty of differences still exist in many aspects,particularly in terms of the turbine blade. Thus, it is of great significance to study the simulation of ocean currentturbine to predict the best efficiency and promote the application of green energy resources, especially the oceancurrent energy.The study can be summarized into the following categories:1) First, two different typical ocean current turbines are introduced and compared in consideration of thefactors including shape, working principle, etc. Then, the advantages and disadvantages of the two kindsof turbines are described, respectively. The prosperity of the vertical ocean current turbine can beconcluded through the comparison.2) Second, a new type of cambered airfoil is studied, and the force on the airfoil is analyzed. Then, averified coupling method is employed to compute the lift and drag coefficients of the airfoil.3) Third, aerodynamic performance of the ocean currents turbine is used with two dimensional time-accurate incompressible Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) solver as well as SST k-ω turbulencemodel and moving mesh technique.4) Fourth, the superposition of the torque coefficient of four blades and that gained from the wholenumerical simulation are compared in the period when the turbine finishes one cycle. The latter one ismuch reliable.5) Finally, the mechanism of the underwater blade is analyzed. The vibration characteristics and dynamicresponse during the operation are simulated using the commercial FEA code ANSYS.