Re-Creating Waves in Large Currents for Tidal Energy Applications
Unsteady wave loading on tidal turbines impacts significantly the design, and expected life-time, of turbine blades and other key components. Model-scale testing of tidal turbines in the wave-current environment can provide vital understanding by emulating real-world load cases; however, to reduce u...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2017-11-01
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| Series: | Energies |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/11/1838 |
| _version_ | 1811263041389461504 |
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| author | Samuel Draycott Duncan Sutherland Jeffrey Steynor Brian Sellar Vengatesan Venugopal |
| author_facet | Samuel Draycott Duncan Sutherland Jeffrey Steynor Brian Sellar Vengatesan Venugopal |
| author_sort | Samuel Draycott |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Unsteady wave loading on tidal turbines impacts significantly the design, and expected life-time, of turbine blades and other key components. Model-scale testing of tidal turbines in the wave-current environment can provide vital understanding by emulating real-world load cases; however, to reduce uncertainty, it is important to isolate laboratory-specific artefacts from real-world behaviour. In this paper, a variety of realistic combined current-wave scenarios is re-created at the FloWave basin, where the main objective is to understand the characteristics of testing in a combined wave-current environment and assess whether wave effects on the flow field can be predicted. Here, we show that a combination of linear wave-current theory and frequency-domain reflection analysis can be used to effectively predict wave-induced particle velocities and identify velocity components that are experimental artefacts. Load-specific mechanisms present in real-world conditions can therefore be isolated, and equivalent full-scale load cases can be estimated with greater confidence. At higher flow speeds, a divergence from the theory presented is observed due to turbulence-induced non-stationarity. The methodology and results presented increase learning about the wave-current testing environment and provide analysis tools able to improve test outputs and conclusions from scale model testing. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-12T19:37:50Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-7b25ca7952a747d59c5649324fb02131 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1996-1073 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-12T19:37:50Z |
| publishDate | 2017-11-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Energies |
| spelling | doaj.art-7b25ca7952a747d59c5649324fb021312022-12-22T03:19:10ZengMDPI AGEnergies1996-10732017-11-011011183810.3390/en10111838en10111838Re-Creating Waves in Large Currents for Tidal Energy ApplicationsSamuel Draycott0Duncan Sutherland1Jeffrey Steynor2Brian Sellar3Vengatesan Venugopal4School of Engineering, Institute for Energy Systems, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3DW, UKSchool of Engineering, Institute for Energy Systems, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3DW, UKSchool of Engineering, Institute for Energy Systems, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3DW, UKSchool of Engineering, Institute for Energy Systems, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3DW, UKSchool of Engineering, Institute for Energy Systems, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3DW, UKUnsteady wave loading on tidal turbines impacts significantly the design, and expected life-time, of turbine blades and other key components. Model-scale testing of tidal turbines in the wave-current environment can provide vital understanding by emulating real-world load cases; however, to reduce uncertainty, it is important to isolate laboratory-specific artefacts from real-world behaviour. In this paper, a variety of realistic combined current-wave scenarios is re-created at the FloWave basin, where the main objective is to understand the characteristics of testing in a combined wave-current environment and assess whether wave effects on the flow field can be predicted. Here, we show that a combination of linear wave-current theory and frequency-domain reflection analysis can be used to effectively predict wave-induced particle velocities and identify velocity components that are experimental artefacts. Load-specific mechanisms present in real-world conditions can therefore be isolated, and equivalent full-scale load cases can be estimated with greater confidence. At higher flow speeds, a divergence from the theory presented is observed due to turbulence-induced non-stationarity. The methodology and results presented increase learning about the wave-current testing environment and provide analysis tools able to improve test outputs and conclusions from scale model testing.https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/11/1838tidal energywave-current interactiontank testingwave orbitalswave reflection analysis |
| spellingShingle | Samuel Draycott Duncan Sutherland Jeffrey Steynor Brian Sellar Vengatesan Venugopal Re-Creating Waves in Large Currents for Tidal Energy Applications Energies tidal energy wave-current interaction tank testing wave orbitals wave reflection analysis |
| title | Re-Creating Waves in Large Currents for Tidal Energy Applications |
| title_full | Re-Creating Waves in Large Currents for Tidal Energy Applications |
| title_fullStr | Re-Creating Waves in Large Currents for Tidal Energy Applications |
| title_full_unstemmed | Re-Creating Waves in Large Currents for Tidal Energy Applications |
| title_short | Re-Creating Waves in Large Currents for Tidal Energy Applications |
| title_sort | re creating waves in large currents for tidal energy applications |
| topic | tidal energy wave-current interaction tank testing wave orbitals wave reflection analysis |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/11/1838 |
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