Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Optimal Design of a Marine Current Turbine Using CFD and FEA

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference in Ocean Engineering (ICOE2018)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering ((LNCE,volume 23))

Abstract

Ocean currents that are produced due to motion of tides can be utilized in power extraction by using suitable turbines. The turbine should be structurally and hydrodynamically strong. In this paper, a 0.8 m horizontal axis marine current turbine (MCT) with three blades is analyzed. A 3D CAD model of a turbine is optimized using CFD and FEA tools. The performance of the turbine is based on the coefficient of power; however, the turbine should resist the loads acting on it. The fatigue load damages the turbine which is mainly due to wave loads and it must be evaluated to avoid the cost of replacing a new turbine. Only a turbine with high power coefficient and good material strength will result in a favorable design. The parameters like pitch angles, number of blades, and turbine material are modified to study the performance and structural stability of the turbine. The detailed CFD study including boundary conditions and methodology has contributed to get an insight of the flow physics. The best suitable pitch angle and number of rotor blades for the turbine are analyzed and discussed. The optimized turbine has two rotor blades with a pitch angle of 19.5° and has achieved a significant 25% increase in CP. Later, different materials are chosen to identify the variation in stress and tip deflection of the turbine blades. This will direct toward a safe design of the turbine blades.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 169.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 219.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Abbreviations

BEM:

Blade element momentum

CAD:

Computer-aided designing

CFD:

Computational fluid dynamics

FEA:

Finite element analysis

GA:

Genetic algorithm

KRG:

Kriging

PRESS:

Predicted error sum of square

RANS:

Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes

RBF:

Radial basis function

RSA:

Response surface approximation

TSR:

Tip speed ratio

WAS:

Weighted average surrogate

A:

Rotor area (m2)

a:

Axial induction factor

a′:

Tangential induction factor

Cd:

Drag coefficient

Cl:

Lift coefficient

CP:

Power coefficient

CT:

Thrust coefficient

c:

Chord (m)

D:

Turbine tip diameter (m)

\( {\tilde{\text{e}}} \) :

PRESS vector

F:

Objective function

H:

Total depth of water (m)

h:

Installation depth from ocean surface (m)

Q:

Torque (N-m)

R:

Rotor radius (m)

r:

Local radius (m)

T:

Thrust (N)

t:

Thickness (m)

UT:

Free stream velocity (m/s)

Vrel:

Relative velocity (m/s)

α:

Angle of attack

ρ:

Density (kg/m3)

Ω:

Angular velocity of rotor (rad/s)

ϕ:

Local blade pitch angle

φ:

Angle between the plane of rotation

ERR:

Error

OPT:

Optimal

RMS:

Root mean square

SUR:

Surrogate

References

  1. Bahaj AS, Myers LE (2003) Fundamentals applicable to the utilization of marine current turbines for energy production. Renew Energy 28(14):2205–2211

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Myers LE, Bahaj AS (2007) Wake studies of a 1/30th scale horizontal axis marine current turbine. Ocean Eng 34(5/6):758–762

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Rosli R, Norman R, Atlar M (2016) Experimental investigations of the Hydro-Spina turbine performance. Renew Energy 99:1227–1234

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Nishino T, Willden RHJ (2012) Effects of 3-D channel blockage and turbulent wake mixing on the limit of power extraction by tidal turbines. Int J Heat Fluid Flow 37:123–135

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Wimshurst A, Willden RHJ (2016) Computational analysis of blockage designed tidal turbine rotors. Progress in Renewable Energies Offshore, Taylor & Francis Group, pp 587–597

    Google Scholar 

  6. Amet E, Maitre T, Pellone C, Achard JL (2009) 2D numerical simulations of blade vortex interactions in a darrieus turbine. J Fluids Eng 131(11):1–15

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Priegue L, Stoesser T, Runge S (2015) Effect of blade parameters on the performance of a cross flow turbine. In: Proceedings of the 36th IAHR world congress, 28th June to 3rd July, The Netherlands

    Google Scholar 

  8. Schluntz J, Willden RHJ (2015) The effect of blockage on tidal turbine rotor design and performance. Renew Energy 81:432–441

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Mukherji SS, Kolkar N, Banerjee A, Mishra R (2011) Numerical investigation and evaluation of optimum hydrodynamic performance of a horizontal axis hydrokinetic turbine. J Renew Sustain Energy 3(063105):1–17

    Google Scholar 

  10. Kolekar N, Banerjee A (2013) A coupled hydro-structural design optimization for hydrokinetic turbines. J Renew Sustain Energy 5(053146):1–22

    Google Scholar 

  11. Selig MS, Carroll VLC (1996) Application of a genetic algorithm to wind turbine design. J Energy Res Technol 118(1):22–28

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Belessis MA, Stamos DG (1996) Investigation of the capabilities of a genetic optimization algorithm in designing wind turbine rotors. In: Proceedings of European union wind energy conference and exhibition, May 20–24, Goteborg, Sweden

    Google Scholar 

  13. Fuglsang P, Madsen HA (1999) Optimization method for wind turbine rotors. J Wind Eng Ind Aerodyn 80(1/2):191–206

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. McEwen LN, Evans R, Meunier M (2012) Cost effective tidal turbine blades. In: 4th international conference on ocean energy, 17th October, Dublin

    Google Scholar 

  15. Bahaj AS, Molland AF, Chaplin JR, Battern WMJ (2007) Power and thrust measurements of marine current turbine under various hydrodynamic flow conditions in a cavitation tunnel and a towing tank. Renew Energy 32(3):407–426

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Blackmore T, Myers LE, Bahaj AS (2016) Effects of turbulence on tidal turbines: Implications to performance, blade loads and condition monitoring. Int J Marine Energy 14:1–26

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Karthikeyan T, Avital EJ, Venkatesan N, Samad A (2017) Design and analysis of marine current turbine. In: Proceedings of ASME 2017 gas turbine India conference and exhibition, 7th and 8th December, Bangalore, India

    Google Scholar 

  18. Menter FR (2014) Two- equation eddy- viscosity turbulence models for engineering applications. AIAA J 32(8):1598–1605

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Bai X, Avital EJ, Munjiza A, Williams JJR (2014) Numerical simulation of a marine current turbine in free surface flow. Renew Energy 63:715–723

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Danao LA, Abuan B, Howell R (2016) Design analysis of a horizontal axis tidal turbine. In: 3rd Asian wave and tidal conference, 24–28th October, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore

    Google Scholar 

  21. Grogan DM, Leen SB, Kennedy CR, Bradaigh CMO (2013) Design of composite tidal turbine blades. Renew Energy 57:151–162

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Thakker A, Jarvis J, Buggy M, Sahed A (2008) A novel approach to materials selection strategy case study: wave energy extraction impulse turbine. Mater Des 29:1973–1980

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Hansen MOL (2008) Aerodynamics of wind turbines – Second edition. Earthscan publication, The United Kingdom

    Google Scholar 

  24. Batten WMJ, Bahaj AS, Molland AF, Chaplin JR (2008) The prediction of the hydrodynamic performance of marine current turbines. Renew Energy 33:1085–1096

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Zhu GJ, Guo PC, Luo XQ, Feng JJ (2012) Multiple objective optimization of the horizontal-axis marine current turbine based on NSGA-II algorithm. Earth Environ Sci 15:1–8

    Google Scholar 

  26. Badhurshah R, Samad A (2015) Multiple surrogate based optimization of a bidirectional impulse turbine for wave energy conversion. Renew Energy 74:749–760

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Koo GW, Lee SM, Kim KY (2014) Shape optimization of inlet part of a printed circuit heat exchanger using surrogate modeling. Appl Therm Eng 72(1):90–96

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Jiang Y, Lin H, Yue G, Zheng Q, Xu X (2017) Aero-thermal optimization on multi-rows film cooling of a realistic marine high pressure turbine vane. Appl Therm Eng 111:537–549

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Tsoukalas I, Kossieris P, Efstratiadis A, Makropoulos C (2016) Surrogate-enhanced evolutionary annealing simplex algorithm for effective and efficient optimization of water resources problems on a budget. Environ Model Softw 77:122–142

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Lee H, Jo Y, Lee DJ, Choi S (2016) Surrogate model based design optimization of multiple wing sails considering flow interaction effect. J Propul Power 24(2):422–436

    Google Scholar 

  31. Samad A, Kim KY (2008) Multiple surrogate modeling for axial compressor blade shape optimization. Struct Multidisciplinary Optim 39(4):439–457

    Google Scholar 

  32. Jiang Y, Lin H, Yue G, Zheng Q, Xu X (2017) Aero-thermal optimization on multi-rows film cooling of a realistic marine high pressure turbine vane. Appl Therm Eng 111:537–549

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Batten WMJ, Bahaj AS, Molland AF, Chaplin JR (2007) Experimentally validated numerical method for the hydrodynamic design of horizontal axis tidal turbines. Ocean Eng 34(7):1013–1020

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Delafin PL, Nishino T, Wang L, Kolios A (2016) Effect of the number of blades and solidity on the performance of a vertical axis wind turbine. J Phys: Conf Ser 753:1–8

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wave Energy and Fluids Engineering Lab, Department of Ocean Engineering, IIT Madras, Chennai, 600036, TN, India

    Thandayutham Karthikeyan, Lava Kush Mishra & Abdus Samad

Authors
  1. Thandayutham Karthikeyan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Lava Kush Mishra
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Abdus Samad
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Abdus Samad .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ocean Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

    K. Murali

  2. Department of Ocean Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

    V. Sriram

  3. Department of Ocean Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

    Abdus Samad

  4. Department of Ocean Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

    Nilanjan Saha

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Karthikeyan, T., Mishra, L.K., Samad, A. (2019). Optimal Design of a Marine Current Turbine Using CFD and FEA. In: Murali, K., Sriram, V., Samad, A., Saha, N. (eds) Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference in Ocean Engineering (ICOE2018). Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering , vol 23. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3134-3_50

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3134-3_50

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-13-3133-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-13-3134-3

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation