CFD simulation of vertical axis tidal turbine using two-way fluid structure interaction method

Abstract

Numerical simulation models are commonly used nowadays to quantify the effects of tidal extraction specifically in tidal systems. Vertical axis tidal turbine (VATT) is one of the major tools to harness the tidal energy. The development of accurate and reliable simulation scheme is the aim of researchers to minimize the computational time as well as to minimize the testing and experimental cost. In this paper a two-way Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI) coupling scheme is developed for the hydrodynamic analysis of VATT. Main hydrodynamic parameters like torque T, combined moment CM, coefficients of performance CP and coefficient of torque CT, etc. are investigated. This method combines fluid simulation with structure dynamic analysis. This method is based on a general computational fluid dynamic (CFD) code that solves the Navier Stokes Equations by finite volume method. A technique used to couple the CFD code to structural dynamic program to calculate the airfoil displacements due to the hydrodynamics forces and updating the grid at each time step. At the end the difference between the CFX independent simulations results and two-way FSI results are compared to highlight the difference.