Hydrokinetic Turbine Performance and Wake Analysis Using a Data-Driven Actuator Line Model

A data-driven actuator line model was derived using a blade-resolved turbine DES simulation. Pressure and viscous forces were extracted from the blades and incorporated into an actuator line model framework implementation in OpenFOAM. The data-driven actuator line model attempts to address the limitations of the currently available actuator line model. The development of the data-driven actuator line model transformed the high-fidelity blade-resolved force data into force coefficients. The result is a finely tuned model that can replicate the turbine performance of the blade-resolved model for a fraction of the computational expense. The comparison between the data-driven actuator line model and the actuator line model reveals that at high tip speed ratios the actuator line model over predicts the thrust and power coefficient. The author discusses the limitations of the data-driven actuator line model in its current form and how the model will be advanced.