FloWTurb: Response of Tidal Energy Converters to Combined Tidal Flow, Waves, and Turbulence

已知潮流具有复杂的湍流结构。虽然潮汐流的大小和方向变化是确定性的，但波流环境中湍流的特性本质上是随机的，并且还没有很好地理解。环境上游湍流强度影响潮汐涡轮机的性能，同时影响下游尾流的形成;后者在规划潮汐涡轮机阵列时至关重要。当波浪被添加到湍流潮流时，所产生的波流诱导的湍流及其对潮汐涡轮机的影响使得设计问题真正具有挑战性。虽然在世界各地的几个地点已经获得了一些非常有趣和有用的潮汐湍流的现场测量结果，但在波浪和潮流共存的地方，例如在PFOW中，只进行了有限的测量。此外，由于这些测量是在授权给特定海洋能源设备开发商的地点进行的，因此学术研究人员或其他设备开发商无法获得这些数据。考虑到彭特兰湾潮流发电的持续发展，迫切需要在计划部署的设备附近进行先进的现场测量。同样，在实验室中控制波浪、水流和湍流的产生，以及测量模型比例的潮汐涡轮机的性能特性，将有助于进一步了解波浪-水流相互作用。这种测量将提供对波浪和未对准的潮汐流对潮汐涡轮机性能的综合影响的正确理解，以及对单个装置和完整阵列的循环载荷。这种测量的可用性将减少分析中的不确定性（并因此减少风险），从而通过更优化的潮汐涡轮机叶片和转子结构的知情设计来提高可靠性（并因此降低成本）。了解波-流-结构相互作用及其如何影响转子、支撑结构、基础和其他结构部件上的动态载荷，不仅对于评估功率或性能至关重要，而且对于评估正常运行和极端波和流情景（用于评估技术的生存性和经济可行性）以及预测相关风险也至关重要。该提案旨在通过实验室和实地测量解决这些问题。本研究将探讨潮汐流、重力波与环境流乱流对潮汐能转换器动态反应的综合影响。将建立一个高质量的数据库，其中包括彭特兰湾、奥克尼群岛沃茨水域和设得兰群岛地区的现场规模测量结果，并辅之以爱丁堡大学FloWave波流设施的实验室规模测量结果。将在爱丁堡大学的FloWave设施中进行受控实验，以确定潮流装置上的水动力载荷，从而确定涡轮机转子和基础上的波-流-湍流诱导疲劳载荷的参数。

Tidal currents are known to have complex turbulent structures. Whilst the magnitude and directional variation of a tidal flow is deterministic, the characteristics of turbulent flow within a wave-current environment are stochastic in nature, and not well understood. Ambient upstream turbulent intensity affects the performance of a tidal turbine, while influencing downstream wake formation; the latter of which is crucial when arrays of tidal turbines are planned. When waves are added to the turbulent tidal current, the resulting wave-current induced turbulence and its impact on a tidal turbine make the design problem truly challenging. Although some very interesting and useful field measurements of tidal turbulence have been obtained at several sites around the world, only limited measurements have been made where waves and tidal currents co-exist, such as in the PFOW. Also, as these measurements are made at those sites licensed to particular marine energy device developers, the data are not accessible to academic researchers or other device developers. Given the ongoing development of tidal stream power in the Pentland Firth, there is a pressing need for advanced in situ field measurements at locations in the vicinity of planned device deployments. Equally, controlled generation of waves, currents and turbulence in the laboratory, and measurement of the performance characteristics of a model-scale tidal turbine will aid in further understanding of wave-current interactions. Such measurements would provide a proper understanding of the combined effects of waves and misaligned tidal stream flows on tidal turbine performance, and the resulting cyclic loadings on individual devices and complete arrays. The availability of such measurements will reduce uncertainty in analysis (and hence risk) leading to increased reliability (and hence cost reductions) through the informed design of more optimised tidal turbine blades and rotor structures. An understanding of wave-current-structure interaction and how this affects the dynamic loading on the rotor, support structure, foundation, and other structural components is essential not only for the evaluation of power or performance, but also for the estimation of normal operational and extreme wave and current scenarios used to assess the survivability and economic viability of the technology, and to predict associated risks. The proposal aims to address these issues through laboratory and field measurements. This research will investigate the combined effect of tidal currents, gravity waves, and ambient flow turbulence on the dynamic response of tidal energy converters. A high quality database will be established comprising field-scale measurements from the Pentland Firth, Orkney waters, and Shetland region, supplemented by laboratory-scale measurements from Edinburgh University's FloWave wave-current facility. Controlled experiments will be carried out at Edinburgh University's FloWave facility to determine hydrodynamic loads on a tidal current device and hence parameterise wave-current-turbulence-induced fatigue loading on the turbine's rotor and foundation.