Numerical optimization of axial turbine with self‐pitch‐controlled blades used for wave energy conversion

Wells turbines are among the most practical wave energy converters despite their low aerodynamic efficiency and power produced. It is proposed to improve the performance of Wells turbines by optimizing the blade pitch angle. Optimization is implemented using a fully automated optimization algorithm. Two different airfoil geometries are numerically investigated: the standard NACA 0021 and an airfoil with an optimized profile. Numerical results show that each airfoil has its own optimum blade pitch angle. The present computational fluid dynamics optimization results show that the optimum blade pitch angle for NACA 0021 is +0.3° while that of the airfoil with an optimized profile equals +0.6°.The performance of the investigated airfoils is substantially improved by setting the blades at the optimum blade pitch angle. Both the turbine efficiency and tangential force coefficient are improved, especially at low flow rate and during turbine startup. Up to 4.3% average increase in turbine efficiency is achieved by optimizing the blade pitch angle. A slight improvement of the tangential force coefficient and decrease of the axial force coefficient are also obtained. A tangible increase of the stall‐free operating range is also achieved by optimizing the blade pitch angle. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effect of Guide Vanes on the Performance of a Variable Chord Self—Rectifying Air Turbine

INTRODUCTIONWiththeconventionalenergyresourceslikelytogetexhaustedinafewdecades,theinexhaustiblesourcesofenergyhavetotaketheirplace.Alternateenergyfromtheoceanisattractingtheattelltionoftheresearchersinrecentyearsduetoitsperennialavailabilityandminimumhealthhazards.Ofthemanypossibleformsofoceanenergy,waveenergyispromising.Waveenergyisanalternateformenergy,whichispollutantfreeandinnearfutureitislikelytobeeconomicallyviable.Countrieswhicharesurroundedbyseaandpossessremotelysituatedislandcom…     

振荡水柱波浪发电空气透平工作特性数值模拟

为更深入地探讨振荡水柱式波能发电装置的原理,对用于波力发电装置二次能量转换的威尔斯式透平进行了三维全流道模拟计算。针对对称翼型叶片和非对称翼型叶片的威尔斯式透平,分别考察了其在不同叶片安装角下的效率和出力随流量系数的变化趋势,得出了不同叶片安装角时威尔斯式透平运行的最佳参数。在相同工况下,对比分析了不同翼型叶片威尔斯式透平的效率、出力、输入系数及扭矩系数随流量系数的变化,并比较了叶片表面的压力分布情况。结果表明,随着叶片安装角增大,装置最高效率值增大,且在安装角大于9°后变化缓慢,而装置最大出力却随着安装角的增大而减小;采用非对称翼型叶片时,装置的出力、输入系数、扭矩系数均大于相同工况下对称翼型叶片装置。     

垂直轴风力机两种翼型气动性能比较研究

叶片是风力机最重要的组成部分,在不同的风能资源情况下,翼型的选择对垂直轴风力机气动特性有着重要的影响。文章分别以NACA0018翼型(对称翼型)和NACA4418翼型(非对称翼型)建立3叶片H型垂直轴风力机二维仿真模型。应用数值模拟的研究方法,从功率系数、单个叶片切向力系数等方面比较两种风力机模型在不同叶尖速比下的气动特性,并采用风洞实验数据验证了流场计算的准确性。CFD计算结果表明:在低叶尖速比下,NACA4418翼型风力机气动特性优于NACA0018翼型风力机,适用于低风速区域;在高叶尖速比下,NACA0018翼型风力机气动特性较好,适用于高风速地区。而且在高叶尖速比时,NACA0018翼型在上风区时,切向力系数平均值要高于NACA4418翼型,在下风区时,NACA418翼型切向力系数平均值高。该研究可为小型垂直轴风力机翼型的选择提供参考。     

Effect of guide vanes on the performance of a self-rectifying air turbine with constant and variable chord rotors

A Wells turbine is a self-rectifying air flow turbine capable of converting pneumatic power of the periodically reversing air stream in Oscillating Water Column into mechanical energy. The Wells turbine has inherent disadvantages; lower efficiency, poorer starting characteristics, higher axial force and low tangential force in comparison with conventional turbines. Guide vanes before and after the rotor suggest a means to improve the tangential force, hence its efficiency. Experimental investigations are carried out on a Wells turbine with the constant chord and variable chord blade rotors fitted with inlet and outlet guide vanes to understand the aerodynamics. Experiments were also conducted for the above said rotors with various stagger angles to validate the design stagger angle. In addition, the starting and running characteristics of the rotors have been studied and compared with the case without guide vanes. Studies were done at various flow coefficients covering the entire range of flow coefficients over which the turbine is operable. The efficiency, starting characteristics of the turbines with guide vanes have improved when compared with the respective turbines without guide vanes.     

Wave energy harvesting using a novel turbine rotor geometry

Wells turbines provide a practical solution for wave energy harvesting. The low aerodynamic efficiency of Wells turbines tangibly reduces their output power. Both the turbine efficiency and output power depend on the turbine solidity. The turbine solidity decreases from rotor hub to rotor tip for the commonly used rotors with constant chord‐length blades. The present work introduces a novel Wells turbine rotor geometry. This geometry was obtained by numerically optimizing the rotor's radial solidity distribution. The turbine performance with different rotor geometries was numerically simulated by solving the three‐dimensional Reynolds‐averaged Navier–Stocks equation under incompressible and steady state flow conditions. Simple and multi‐objective optimization were implemented in order to obtain the optimum rotor geometry. The present work showed that an improved turbine performance can be achieved by optimizing the turbine radial solidity distribution. Two different optimized rotor geometries were obtained and presented. The first rotor geometry improved the turbine efficiency by up to 4.7% by reducing its pressure drop. The second rotor geometries enhanced the turbine output power by up to 10.8%. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

新型变桨立轴风力机涡效应分析

该文旨在通过变桨来改善升力型立轴风力机叶片气动特性,提高风力机最大运行效率。针对设计尖速比下风能利用系数较低的问题,提出减小叶片小攻角范围,增大叶片大攻角工作范围,以重点改善叶片低性能区域的气动特性为出发点,提高风能利用系数新变桨思路。以采用NACA0012翼型、2 m高和2 m旋转直径的两叶片H型风力机为研究对象,从涡理论来分析和比较在最佳尖速比为5的条件下,附着涡、尾随涡、脱体涡和桨距角对攻角、切向力和功率输出的影响规律。研究结果表明:变桨后,叶片的攻角、切向力和输出功率在原最大值两侧均有明显提高,拓宽了叶片高性能的工作区域;涡系中脱体涡对叶片气动特性影响最大,其中在上盘面影响较小,在下盘面影响较大;变桨前后涡系对上盘面的差异较小,对下盘面的影响差异较明显;变桨后,下盘面的叶片的涡尾迹弯曲程度在加大。     

Wells turbine blade profile optimization for better wave energy capture

Despite the fact that wave energy is available at no cost, it is always desired to harvest the maximum possible amount of this energy. The axial flow air turbines are commonly used with oscillating water column devices as a power take‐off system. The present work introduces a blade profile optimization technique that improves the air turbine performance while considering the complex 3D flow phenomena. This technique produces non‐standard blade profiles from the coordinates of the standard ones. It implements a multi‐objective optimization algorithm in order to define the optimum blade profile. The proposed optimization technique was successfully applied to a biplane Wells turbine in the present work. It produced an optimum blade profile that improves the turbine torque by up to 9.3%, reduces the turbine damping coefficient by 10%, and increases the turbine operating range by 5%. The optimized profile increases the annual average turbine power by up to 3.6% under typical sea conditions. Moreover, new blade profiles were produced from the wind turbine airfoil data and investigated for use with the biplane Wells turbine. The present work showed that two of these profiles could be used with low wave energy seas. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

吸气控制策略对垂直轴风力机气动性能影响研究

针对垂直轴风力机复杂气动特性,将吸气孔置于风力机翼型上下表面,提出不同吸气控制策略以改善其气动性能。基于CFD方法,研究不同叶尖速比下吸气策略对风力机风能利用率、叶片切向力系数及流场特性的影响,综合考虑能量消耗与风力机输出功率。结果表明：提出的3种控制策略在低叶尖速比下均能大幅提升整机气动效率。效果最佳的迎、背风区交替吸气策略可显著推迟分离点,延缓翼型动态失速发生,并减少分离涡周期性脱落造成的损失。此外,该策略对动态尾迹效应有良好的控制效果,同时降低整机转矩波动幅值,消除中低叶尖速比下风轮负转矩,从而提高获能效率且延长风力机使用寿命。     

Fluid‐structure interaction of a morphing symmetrical wind turbine blade subjected to variable load

A brief summary of the main challenges of rotor design in wind energy conversion (WEC) systems, most notably the horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT), are presented. One of the limiting factors in HAWT design is choosing the rated capacity to maximize power output and turbine longevity. One such strategy to accomplish this goal is to widen the operational range of the WEC system by using pitch or torque control, which can be costly and subject to mechanical failure. We present a morphing airfoil concept, which passively controls airfoil pitch through elastic deformation. As a justification of the concept, a two‐dimensional fluid‐structure interaction routine is used to simulate the aeroelastic response of a symmetric NACA 0012 blade subjected to variable loading. The results suggest that the morphing blade can be designed to offer superior average lift to drag ratios over a specified range of attack angles by up to 4.2%, and possibly even higher. This infers that the morphing blade design can increase the power production of WEC systems while conceivably reducing cost because the passive deformation of the morphing turbine does not require active control systems that come at an added upfront and maintenance cost. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Thermoeconomic optimization of an ice thermal storage system for gas turbine inlet cooling

The gas turbine power output and efficiency decrease with increasing ambient temperature. With compressor inlet air cooling, the air density and mass flow rate as well as the gas turbine net power output increase. The inlet cooling techniques include vapor or absorption refrigeration systems, evaporative cooling systems and thermal energy storage (TES) systems. In this paper the thermoeconomic analysis of ice (latent) thermal energy storage system for gas turbine inlet cooling application was performed. The optimum values of system design parameters were obtained using genetic algorithm optimization technique. The objective function included the capital and operational costs of the gas turbine, vapor compression refrigeration system, without (objective function I) and with (objective function II) corresponding cost due to the system exergy destruction. For gas turbines with net power output in the range of 25-100 MW, the inlet air cooling using a TES system increased the power output in the range of 3.9-25.7%, increased the efficiency in the range 2.1-5.2%, while increased the payback period from about 4 to 7.7 years.     

叶顶间隙形状对Wells透平性能的影响

Wells透平对叶顶间隙的改变十分敏感,合理改造Wells透平的叶顶间隙有助于提高其能量转换效率。本文利用CFD技术在控制叶顶间隙大小相等的前提下研究了三种具有不同类型叶顶间隙形状的Wells透平,比较其出力、高效运行区和能量转化效率,考察其性能上的差异和适用范围,通过对流场和压场的分析找出其性能差异的根本原因。结果表明：渐扩型叶顶间隙的Wells透平具有较高的能量转化效率,但容易失速;均匀叶顶间隙的Wells透平具有最大的出力且高效运行区更宽;相较于前面两者,渐缩型叶顶间隙的Wells透平性能不突出。     

Effects of Hub-To-Tip Ratio and Tip Clearance on Hysteretic Characteristics of Wells Turbine for Wave Power Conversion

A Wells turbine for wave power conversion has hysteretic characteristics in a reciprocating flow. The hysteretic loop is opposite to the well-known dynamic stall of an airfoil. In this paper, the mechanism of the hysteretic behavior was elucidated by an unsteady 3-dimensional Navier-Stokes numerical simulation. It was found that the hysteretic behavior was associated with a streamwise vortical flow appearing near the blade suction surface. The effects of hub-to-tip ratio and tip clearance on the hysteretic characteristics of the Wells turbine have also been discussed in this paper.     

A simple improvement of a tip loss model for actuator disc simulations

The loading of a wind turbine decreases towards the blade tip because of the velocities induced by the tip vortex. This tip loss effect has to be taken into account when performing actuator disc simulations, where the single blades of the turbine are not modeled. A widely used method applies a factor on the axial and tangential loading of the turbine. This factor decreases when approaching the blade tip. It has been shown that the factor should be different for the axial and tangential loading of the turbine to model the rotation of the resulting force vector at the airfoil sections caused by the induced velocity. The present article contains the derivation of a simple correction for the tangential load factor that takes this rotation into account. The correction does not need any additional curve fitting but just depends on the local airfoil characteristics and angle of attack. Actuator disc computations with the modified tip loss correction show improved agreement with results from actuator line, free wake lifting line, and blade element momentum simulations.     

Hysteretic characteristics of Wells turbine for wave power conversion

A Wells turbine blade for wave power conversion has hysteretic characteristics in a reciprocating flow. The hysteretic loop is opposite to the well-known dynamic stall of an airfoil. In this paper, the mechanism of the hysteretic behavior was elucidated by an unsteady 3-dimensional Navier-Stokes numerical simulation. It was found that the hysteretic behavior was associated with a streamwise vortical flow appearing near the blade suction surface. And also the effects of solidity, setting angle and blade thickness on the hysteretic characteristics of the Wells turbine have been discussed.     

海洋能发电装置叶片翼形的性能分析与优化

鉴于水轮机叶片翼形是影响叶片水动力性能的关键指标之一,总结了现有海洋能发电装置使用的叶片类型及翼形结构,基于数值模拟仿真方法,分析了10种不同型号的叶片翼形的水动力性能,包括升阻力力学性能及表面压力分布、压强与速度分布性能指标,并对比了不同翼形的升阻力系数与升阻力比。在此基础上,初步提出了一种叶片翼形优化方法,为提高海洋能发电装置效率及装置叶片水动力分析与优化提供参考。     

Analysis of aerodynamic load on straight-bladed vertical axis wind turbine

This paper presents a wind tunnel experiment for the evaluation of energy performance and aerodynamic forces acting on a small straight-bladed vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) depending on several values of tip speed ratio. In the present study, the wind turbine is a four-bladed VAWT. The test airfoil of blade is symmetry airfoil (NACA0021) with 32 pressure ports used for the pressure measurements on blade surface. Based on the pressure distributions which are acted on the surface of rotor blade measured during rotation by multiport pressure-scanner mounted on a hub, the power, tangential force, lift and drag coefficients which are obtained by pressure distribution are discussed as a function of azimuthally position. And then, the loads which are applied to the entire wind turbine are compared with the experiment data of pressure distribution. As a result, it is clarified that aerodynamic forces take maximum value when the blade is moving to upstream side, and become small and smooth at downstream side. The power and torque coefficients which are based on the pressure distribution are larger than that by torque meter.     

Fluidic flow control applied for improved performance of Darrieus wind turbines

The focus of the present research is performance enhancement of a vertical axis Darrieus‐type wind turbine using flow control techniques. The academic and industrial interest in vertical‐axis wind turbines (VAWTs) is increasing because of its suitability to urban areas, characterized by high turbulence and low wind speeds. The paper describes experimental work performed on a GOE222 asymmetrical airfoil intended to be used in a straight‐bladed Darrieus VAWT. Airfoil characteristics were measured in a wide range of incidence angles and Reynolds numbers, relevant for the operation of a small to medium size wind turbine. A variety of passive flow control (passive porosity and surface roughness) and active flow control techniques (boundary layer suction, pulsed suction) were tested in order to evaluate their effects on the airfoil performance. The measured effects of flow control on the 2D airfoil are integrated into a modified version of a double‐multiple streamtube model in order to predict the effects on the performance and efficiency of the turbine. It was found that the improvement of 2D airfoil characteristics can be translated into improvement of total turbine performance. By the use of active flow control, it was possible to increase the VAWT maximum mechanical output. When active flow control is properly activated taking into account the azimuth and Reynolds number conditioning, the effects could be greatly increased while consuming less energy, increasing the net efficiency of the entire system. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Optimization of Savonius turbines using an obstacle shielding the returning blade

Due to the worldwide energy crisis, research and development activities in the field of renewable energy have been considerably increased in many countries. In Germany, wind energy is becoming particularly important. Although considerable progress has already been achieved, the available technical design is not yet adequate to develop reliable wind energy converters for conditions corresponding to low wind speeds and urban areas. The Savonius turbine appears to be particularly promising for such conditions, but suffers from a poor efficiency. The present study considers a considerably improved design in order to increase the output power of a Savonius turbine with either two or three blades. In addition, the improved design leads to a better self-starting capability. To achieve these objectives, the position of an obstacle shielding the returning blade of the Savonius turbine and possibly leading to a better flow orientation toward the advancing blade is optimized. This automatic optimization is carried out by coupling an in-house optimization library (OPAL) with an industrial flow simulation code (ANSYS-Fluent). The optimization process takes into account the output power coefficient as target function, considers the position and the angle of the shield as optimization parameters, and relies on Evolutionary Algorithms. A considerable improvement of the performance of Savonius turbines can be obtained in this manner, in particular a relative increase of the power output coefficient by more than 27%. It is furthermore demonstrated that the optimized configuration involving a two-blade rotor is better than the three-blade design.     

垂直轴风力机改进翼型气动及功率特性研究

为提高垂直轴风力机的风能利用率,基于CFD数值模拟技术,分析了常用典型垂直轴风力机翼型的气动及功率特性,并以NACA0012翼型为基础对其进行改进。对比改进前后翼型表明,增大翼型厚度可降低升阻比,增大翼型弯度可增强其失速特性;厚尾缘翼型、升阻互补型翼型可分别降低翼型失速性能、增加启动力矩,其中厚尾缘翼型的H型垂直轴风力机的功率系数较大,可提高风能利用率,为翼型优化设计提供了新思路。