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Numerical simulations of a vertical-axis hydrokinetic turbine with different blade-strut configurations under free-surface effects

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Abstract

A numerical study of the free-surface flow over a vertical-axis hydrokinetic turbine with different blade-strut configurations is presented in this paper. The set of equations governing this multi-fluid flow consists of the Navier–Stokes equations and an advection equation of the signed distance function which describes the motion of the air–water interface in the context of the level-set method. For this application which involves domain motion, we adopt an arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) description of the continuum where domain motion occurs independently of the fluid flow. Moreover, the variational multiscale (VMS) method is used for turbulence modelling resulting in the so-called ALE-VMS formulation. The formulation is used to investigate the performance of the turbine in four different computational settings. First, the quarter-struts and tip-struts configurations are simulated under a deep immersion depth. The results of the deep immersion cases show negligible effect from the free surface on the turbine performance. Next, the quarter-struts and tip-struts configurations are simulated under a shallow immersion depth. The results show significant effects of the turbine wake on the deformation of the air–water interface. A reduction in the performance of the turbine is observed in the shallow immersion cases and discussed. The results show robustness of the numerical formulation and provide opportunities for future studies.

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Acknowledgements

We thank NSERC Alliance program and Alberta Innovates CASBE program for supporting the project. We thank Compute Canada and Advanced Research Computing at the University of Calgary for providing High Performance Computing resources that have contributed to the results in this paper.

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  1. Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4, Canada

    A. Bayram, M. Dhalwala & A. Korobenko

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, V8W 3P6, Canada

    P. Oshkai

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  1. A. Bayram
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Correspondence to A. Korobenko.

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Bayram, A., Dhalwala, M., Oshkai, P. et al. Numerical simulations of a vertical-axis hydrokinetic turbine with different blade-strut configurations under free-surface effects. Engineering with Computers 39, 1041–1054 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00366-022-01758-8

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