Computational Study of Multiple Hydrokinetic Turbine Performance

The k-omega Shear Stress Transport turbulence model was used to determine the performance of a pair of horizontal-axis hydrokinetic turbines. By varying the separation distance perpendicular to the flow direction between these turbines and computing both power and drag coefficients, the relationship between these outputs and the separation distance as an input was discovered. This study used a rotating reference frame, steady state approximation over three separation distances and two different mesh sizes to verify mesh independence. Once this meshing methodology was verified, two more separation distances were run using the same steady-state approximations at the coarse mesh size to better understand turbine performance at greater separation distances. The results of these simulations show that, at a given separation distance, the left and right turbines have very similar performance. The power and drag coefficients were both found to decrease on the order of 8% as the turbines are brought closer together, which means that, in an infinite and uniform flow field, turbines should be placed as far apart as is feasible to maximize resultant combined power output.