Search

In marine environments, tidal currents exhibit periodic changes in both direction and velocity. Consequently, tidal turbines often operate under yawed conditions. While conventional horizontal-axis turbines show decreased performance and undergo periodic load fluctuations due to blade rotation when yawed, research on the effects of yaw on ducted turbines has been sparse, leaving the underlying impact mechanisms poorly understood. This paper presents a three-dimensional hydrodynamic model of a ducted turbine, developed using the computational fluid dynamics method and validated through flume experiments. The hydrodynamic characteristics of the ducted turbine when operating under yawed conditions are analyzed using large eddy simulation. The findings indicate that yaw does not alter the optimal rotational speed of the ducted turbine. The turbine performance remains superior to non-yawed conditions up to a yaw angle of approximately 7°, peaking with a 1% improvement at 5°, but deteriorates beyond this point, declining by 1.5% at a yaw angle of 10°. In addition, yaw causes a deflection in the wake of the ducted turbine. This deflection increases with the yaw angle, reaching its maximum at a yaw angle of 10° with an angle of about 3.4°, before diminishing. The duct structure significantly influences this deflection, while rotor rotation has a minimal impact on wake deflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wake development of a tidal turbine should be fully considered in the array arrangement. There are many studies on wake characteristics, mainly focusing on a conventional horizontal-axis turbine, while a ducted turbine has attracted little attention. This paper investigates the wake characteristic of a ducted turbine using flume experiments and large eddy simulations. An analytical wake model of the ducted turbine is proposed and verified by the wake profile under different inflow velocities and the downstream turbine performance under different tandem arrangements. The results show that a ducted turbine wake still maintains a high self-similarity, and the wake profile is approximately the double-Gaussian curve. Compared with a conventional tidal turbine, a ducted turbine has a faster wake recovery speed, but a larger radial influence range. Therefore, ducted turbine arrays should be configured with wider radial distances and shorter axial distances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]