Fluid flow modelling through an axial-flow microhydro turbine

Abstract

Original scientific paper In this study, a three-dimensional fluid field of axial-flow type microhydro named Agnew has been investigated. All numerical simulations were performed using OpenFOAM, an open source computational fluid dynamic (CFD) code, to investigate the rotor-stator interaction and losses occurring in the turbine. A sliding interface plane was used to pass the disturbance of stationary domain to rotary domain and vice versa. Several turbulence models were also examined together with wall function in order to take into account the turbulence in the flow. The obtained results show that a high resolution advection scheme, mixing plane to model the rotor-stator interaction together with a turbulence intensity of I = 6 % at the inlet, best matches with the experimental results. Keywords: energy loss coefficient; microhydro; numerical simulation; rotor-stator interaction; turbulence modelling Modeliranje strujanja fluida pomoću aksijalne mikrohidro turbineIzvorni znanstveni članak U ovom je istraživanju analizirano trodimenzionalno polje fluida aksijalne mikrohidro turbine nazvane Agnew. Sve numeričke simulacije su izvedene pomoću OpenFOAM, računalnog koda dinamike fluida otvorenog izvora (CFD), kako bi se istražila interakcija rotor-stator i gubitci koji nastaju u turbini. Klizna dodirna ravnina korištena je da se poremećaj stacionarne domene prenese na rotacijsku domenu i obratno. Također je ispitano nekoliko modela turbulencije zajedno s funkcijom zida kako bi se uzela u obzir turbulencija u strujanju. Dobiveni rezultati pokazuju da schema advekcije visoke rezolucije, koja kombinira dodirnu ravninu za modeliranje interakcije rotor-stator zajedno s intenzitetom turbulencije I = 6 % na ulazu, najbolje odgovara eksperimentalnim rezultatima.