Wind or water turbine power augmentation using the system of guiding surfaces

Abstract

As fluid flows through a conventional wind or hydro turbine, it slows from losing energy to extraction from a turbine and spreads out to a wider area. This results in a loss of turbine efficiency. In order to exploit wind or water flow power more effectively, it was suggested to place the turbine inside a system of specially designed airfoils (‘a flow booster’). One part of the booster (‘a nozzle’) improves the turbine performance by speeding up the flow acting on the turbine blades. The other part of the accelerating system (‘a diffuser’) creates a field of low pressure behind the turbine which helps to draw more mass flow to the turbine and avoid the loss of efficiency due to flow deceleration. The flow booster accumulates the kinetic energy of the flow (e.g. river flow or wind) in a small volume where the smaller turbine can be installed. Another possible application of the booster could be the improvement of wind turbine efficiency during low wind period. The present paper also discusses the possibility of kinetic energy accumulation by the use of several accelerating systems of different sizes—the smaller one can be installed inside the bigger one. It helps to accumulate even more kinetic energy on the turbine blades. We call this method the kinetic energy cumulation. Lab and field experiments and CFD simulations of shrouded turbine demonstrate significant increase in velocity in comparison of those for conventional (bare) turbines.