TY - JOUR
T1 - Performance enhancement of Wells turbine
T2 - Combined radiused edge blade tip, static extended trailing edge, and variable thickness modifications
AU - Kumar, P. Madhan
AU - Halder, Paresh
AU - Husain, Afzal
AU - Samad, Abdus
N1 - Funding Information:
The computing facility provided by Indian Institute of Technology Madras was gratefully acknowledged and the authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their help in improving the paper quality.
PY - 2019/8/1
Y1 - 2019/8/1
N2 - The Wells turbine is used in conjunction with an oscillating water column to harvest wave energy. It is a self-rectifying axial flow reaction turbine which consists of symmetrical blades aligned normal to the incoming flow. A narrow operating range due to flow separation restricts the power extracting capability of the turbine at a higher flow rate. To improve its performance, a turbine blade with combined design modifications such as radiused edge blade (REB) tip, static extended trailing edge (SETE) and variable thickness blade (VTB) was investigated through CFD analysis. Three-dimensional time independent Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations were solved in a commercial solver to obtain the turbine performance, which was given by non-dimensional torque, pressure drop and efficiency. The combined REB tip, SETE and VTB modifications enhanced relative average turbine power output by 97% and the relative operating range by 22%. However, the average efficiency is decreased by 7.7%, because of the increased pressure drop.
AB - The Wells turbine is used in conjunction with an oscillating water column to harvest wave energy. It is a self-rectifying axial flow reaction turbine which consists of symmetrical blades aligned normal to the incoming flow. A narrow operating range due to flow separation restricts the power extracting capability of the turbine at a higher flow rate. To improve its performance, a turbine blade with combined design modifications such as radiused edge blade (REB) tip, static extended trailing edge (SETE) and variable thickness blade (VTB) was investigated through CFD analysis. Three-dimensional time independent Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations were solved in a commercial solver to obtain the turbine performance, which was given by non-dimensional torque, pressure drop and efficiency. The combined REB tip, SETE and VTB modifications enhanced relative average turbine power output by 97% and the relative operating range by 22%. However, the average efficiency is decreased by 7.7%, because of the increased pressure drop.
KW - Radiused edge tip blade
KW - Static extended trailing edge
KW - Wave energy
KW - Wells turbine
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U2 - 10.1016/j.oceaneng.2019.05.041
DO - 10.1016/j.oceaneng.2019.05.041
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85067053244
VL - 185
SP - 47
EP - 58
JO - Ocean Engineering
JF - Ocean Engineering
SN - 0029-8018
ER -