A Critical Examination of the Hysteresis in Wells Turbines Using CFD and Lumped Parameter Models

Abstract

The hysteretic behavior of OWC-installed Wells turbines has been known for decades. The common explanation invokes the presence of unsteady aerodynamics due to the continuously varying incidence of the flow on the turbine blades. This phenomenon is neither new nor unique to Wells turbines, as an aerodynamic hysteresis is present in rapidly oscillating airfoils and wings, as well as in different types of turbomachinery, such as wind turbines and helicopter rotors, which share significant similarities with a Wells turbine. An important difference is the non-dimensional frequency: the hysteresis appears in oscillating airfoils only at frequencies orders of magnitude larger than the ones Wells turbines operate at. This work contains a reexamination of the phenomenon, using both CFD and a lumped parameter model, and shows how the aerodynamic hysteresis in Wells turbines is negligible, and how the often measured differences in performance between acceleration and deceleration are caused by the capacitive behavior of the OWC system.