Study on Bi-Directional Impulse Turbine with Flow Collector for Tidal Energy Conversion

Abstract

The combination of the bi-directional impulse turbine and the bi-directional flow collector for tidal energy conversion is investigated in this study. The bi-directional impulse turbine with fixed guide vanes is adopted because it has a large efficiency and an advantage of maintenance. The geometries of testing model were decided by the air flow experiment for the turbine and the CFD analysis for the flow collector. The water flow experiment of the testing model shows that the relation between the non-dimensional parameters in the water flow experiment is almost the same as the one in the air flow experiment. The inflow into the turbine is very important as well as the turbine efficiency and the predicted maximum power in the sea based on the water flow experiment is about 91kW.