No abstract

Oscillating water columns (OWC) are widely used devices for the extraction of wave energy through self -rectifying impulse air turbines. To improve the performance of any turbo-machinery, guide vanes (GV) play an essential role in deciding turbine characteristics in terms of efficiency and torque. The concept of filleting is used in the GVs of bidirectional impulse turbine (BDI) with five different types of GV fillets for different radii, and the performance was analyzed. The numerical simulation was done using the commercial code ANSYS CFX 16.2, which solves the three-dimensional Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes equation by finite volume explicit Runge-Kutta scheme with the k-ω SST closure model. There is a close agreement between the experimental and the numerical model. The detailed flow physics of filleted GVs have been included in the present work, and it was found that the efficiency increases at higher flow coefficients.

Fillets on leading edges (LE) of turbine blades alter flow patterns and change the loss profile. A bidirectional flow impulse turbine utilized for harnessing wave energy is introduced and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was used to perform various analysis. In the present work, fillets of different radii on the leading and trailing edges of both the rotor blade (RB) and guide vane (GV) are modified to study the change in overall performance. After an appropriate gird convergence study, ANSYS-CFX 16.0 solver is used for solving the Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations incorporating the k-ω-SST turbulence closure model. The numerical investigations were performed using the high-resolution scheme with the convergence criteria of 10−6 to produce unwavering results. The results show that the boundary layer near the endwall creates flow blockage and losses. Also, the increase in pressure drop due to the thickening of the boundary layers (BLs) across the blade/vane leads to a depletion in the overall performance of the turbine. The rotor and guide vane filleted turbine experience higher losses than the base model due to the radial pressure gradient that is explained with post-processed figures. The concept of fillet shapes has been applied to gas turbines and which improves the performance of the turbine due to a reduction in the secondary flow losses occurring inside the turbine and the same concept has been applied to wave energy air turbine to check its performance based on the losses present across the turbine passage.