Hydrokinetic Energy: Turbine technologies and Array Deployment Optimization through CFD

这项为期五年的研究计划旨在支持以流水涡轮机为基础的新兴可再生能源部门的发展。通过广泛的CFD模拟和实验验证，我们计划分析和改进涡轮机设计的性能，并为潮流或河流中涡轮机阵列的最佳部署提供指导。这样做，我们还将有助于提高我们对几个具有挑战性和关键问题的基本理解，例如涡轮机尾迹恢复机制以及上游湍流或涡轮机管道对这些机制的影响。 我们过去六年的研究成果为这一雄心勃勃的计划铺平了道路，该计划围绕两个主要主题构建，即水力涡轮机技术和阵列部署优化，分别分为三个和四个研究项目。 特别是，我们计划继续开发和优化两个横流水轮机概念，即摆翼流体动力水轮机和垂直轴水轮机技术。这两种类型都具有矩形集热面和良好的尾迹恢复机制，这使得它们比旋转叶片轴流涡轮更有前途的设计。除其他外，我们将使用我们最先进的数值模拟工具来研究叶片端板、风道和扩散器增强器以及涡轮机支撑结构的影响。我们还计划在维多利亚大学和渥太华国家实验室NRC/OCRE的合作者的帮助下，对小规模原型进行实验验证。 在涡轮机农场的规模上，为了使计算需求保持现实，需要一种简化的涡轮机建模方法，以可靠地在水资源(潮汐水道或河流、自由水面、水深测量)的三维数值模型中考虑涡轮机的存在和相互作用。我们提出的简化涡轮建模方法在功率提取和每个涡轮的湍流尾迹特征方面应该是准确的，此外，在必要的情况下，还应该足够坚固，能够在扰动流动条件下运行，并且足够灵活，可以考虑管道、扩散器增强器和涡轮结构的影响。由于加拿大计算机公司的超级计算资源，开发和比较简化模型所需的可靠参考数据库将通过大规模、高保真的CFD模拟(3D DDE)生成。 这一研究计划将允许在这一快速增长的可再生能源领域培训至少13名学生，他们拥有最先进的CFD和高性能计算(HPC)方面的热门技能。这一计划可能会对加拿大产生真正的积极影响，因为它有助于加拿大清洁能源来源的多样化，并帮助塑造一个拥有令人垂涎的高科技工作和巨大出口潜力的新工业部门。

This five-year research program aims at supporting the development of the emerging sector of renewable energy based on in-stream water turbines. Through extensive CFD simulations with experimental validation, we plan to analyze and improve the performances of turbine designs and to provide guidelines for the optimal deployment of arrays of turbines in either tidal or river currents. Doing so, we will also contribute to improve our fundamental understanding of several challenging and critical issues such as turbine wake recovery mechanisms and the impact of upstream turbulence or turbine ducts on those mechanisms. Our research achievements over the past six years have paved the way for this ambitious program structured around two main topics, namely, Hydrokinetic turbine technologies, and Array deployment optimization, divided respectively in three and four research projects. In particular, we plan to continue the development and optimization of two cross-flow turbine concepts, namely the oscillating-foils hydrokinetic turbine and the vertical-axis turbine technology. Both types are characterized by a rectangular harvesting plane and favorable wake recovery mechanisms which make them more promising designs than rotating blades axial-flow turbines. The impact of blade end-plates, of duct and diffuser enhancers and of turbine supporting structure will be investigated, among other things, with our state-of-the-art numerical simulation tools. Experimental validations on small-scale prototypes are also planned thanks to our collaborators at University of Victoria and at the national laboratory NRC/OCRE in Ottawa. At the scale of the turbines farm, to keep the computing demands realistic, one requires a simplified turbine modelling approach to reliably take into account the presence and interactions of the turbines in a three-dimensional numerical model of the water resource (tidal channel or river, free-surface, bathymetry). The simplified turbine modeling approach we propose shall be accurate in terms of power extraction and turbulent wake signature of each turbine, in addition of being robust enough to operate in perturbed flow conditions and flexible enough to incorporate the effect of duct, diffuser enhancer and turbine structure if necessary. Reliable reference databases needed to develop and compare the simplified model will be generated with massive, high-fidelity CFD simulations (3D DDES) thanks to the supercomputing resources of Compute Canada. This research program will permit to train at least 13 students in this rapidly growing sector of renewable energy with highly sought skills in state-of-the-art CFD and high-performance computing (HPC). This program is likely to have a true positive impact in Canada by helping to diversify its clean energy sources and by helping shape a new industry sector with coveted high-tech jobs and great exporting potentials.