A Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics method for vertical axis turbine design and assessment

Abstract

With the global demand for more electricity, and for that electricity to be produced using low-carbon generation, a turbine was designed to extract energy from underutilised flows. The mechanism by which the turbine operates makes it highly demanding to represent using mesh-based numerical schemes, resulting in a need to investigate alternative methods. The Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) software, DualSPHysics, utilising the Chrono solid body solver, was used to represent the turbine as a free body in a 2-D environment allowing for evaluation of the free-spin velocity to be assessed. The aim of this being to ascertain the applicability of SPH to the modelling of vertical axis turbines with multiple moving parts, and also develop an understanding of the design itself. The model was found to compare favourably with lab results, showing that a vertical axis turbine may be represented in this fashion. The resilience of the device, a design driver and previously untested mode, was assessed by considering post-damage scenarios. From this, future flume study and parallel numerical modelling can guide this or other vertical axis turbines towards improved performance.