Geometry Design of a Pitch Controlling Type Horizontal Axis Turbine and Comparison of Power Coefficients

Abstract

In this work, based on the blade element-momentum theory (BEMT), we proposed the geometry of a lab-scale horizontal axis tidal turbine with a diameter of 80cm, which can demonstrate the maximum power coefficient, and investigated the effect of blade pitch angle increase on the power coefficient. For validation of the computed power coefficients by the BEMT, we also computed the power coefficient using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for each case. For the CFD, 15 times of the turbine radius was used for the length and diameter of the computational domain, and the open boundary condition was prescribed at the boundary of the computational domain. The maximum power coefficients of the turbine acquired by the BEMT and CFD were about 48%, showing a good agreement. Both of the power coefficients computed by the BEMT and CFD tended to decrease when the blade pitch angle increases. The two power coefficients for a given tip-speed ratio were in good agreement. Through the present study, we have confirmed that we can trust the proposed geometry and the computed power coefficients based on the BEMT.