A large-eddy simulation study of wake propagation and power production in an array of tidal-current turbines

作者：Matthew Churchfield, Ye Li, Patrick Moriarty · 发表于：Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences · 年份：2013 · DOI：10.1098/rsta.2012.0421 · 被引用次数：188 · 研究领域：Wind Energy Research and Development、Fluid Dynamics and Turbulent Flows、Fluid Dynamics and Vibration Analysis

This paper presents our initial work in performing large-eddy simulations of tidal turbine array flows. First, a horizontally periodic precursor simulation is performed to create turbulent flow data. Then those data are used as inflow into a tidal turbine array two rows deep and infinitely wide. The turbines are modelled using rotating actuator lines, and the finite-volume method is used to solve the governing equations. In studying the wakes created by the turbines, we observed that the vertical shear of the inflow combined with wake rotation causes lateral wake asymmetry. Also, various turbine configurations are simulated, and the total power production relative to isolated turbines is examined. We found that staggering consecutive rows of turbines in the simulated configurations allows the greatest efficiency using the least downstream row spacing. Counter-rotating consecutive downstream turbines in a non-staggered array shows a small benefit. This work has identified areas for improvement. For example, using a larger precursor domain would better capture elongated turbulent structures, and including salinity and temperature equations would account for density stratification and its effect on turbulence. Additionally, the wall shear stress modelling could be improved, and more array configurations could be examined.