Extracting Clean Energy Through the Design of a Mesoscopic Low-Power Hydrokinetic Turbine

Abstract

The present work shows the design of a mesoscopic low-power hydrokinetic turbine (160 cm in diameter). We analyze the relationship between the density of the fluid and the speed of the California Current with respect to the energy that is captured by the turbine due to the design. A critical factor in the implementation of the turbine on this scale is the design of the blades, which must withstand the loads generated by the force of the tides and the conditions of the marine environment (salinity, cavitation phenomena along the body of the blades, among others). A free code program based on a Matlab environment was used for the optimization of the blade and in ANSYS Fluent the drag and lift coefficient values were analyzed for a selected profile. The turbine elements were designed in SolidWorks. When the current speed is maximum, we achieve a final electrical power of 4.5kW, approximately.