Horizontal Axis Tidal Turbine: Paper Validation

Horizontal Axis Tidal Turbine, Paper Numerical Validation, ANSYS Fluent CFD Simulation Training

Description

This project simulates a Horizontal Axis Tidal Turbine using ANSYS Fluent, with results compared and validated against the published article "Performance of horizontal axis tidal current turbine by blade configuration."

Water flows at a velocity of 1 m/s and passes over the turbine; as the flow collides with the turbine blades, it generates torque, producing rotational motion in the blades, which in turn induces a rotational flow pattern in the surrounding water.

The 3D model uses S814-type airfoil sections for the turbine blades. Since the airfoil cross-section scales up or down along the blade length (based on airfoil chord length), each individual airfoil section — 16 in total — was imported as a set of coordinate points and drawn in SOLIDWORKS at a specific angle and distance from the central axis. These sections were then imported into Design Modeler for integrated blade construction.

Design Modeler was used to model a three-bladed turbine. A dedicated cylindrical region was created around the blades to capture the circulating water flow, surrounded by a rectangular domain representing free-stream water flow. Blade geometry — including chord size for each airfoil section and its angle of inclination relative to the central axis — followed Table 3 of the referenced paper.

Meshing was performed in ANSYS Meshing using an unstructured grid, with boundary layer mesh applied to the blade surfaces to improve accuracy, totaling 4,270,222 elements.

Methodology

The Moving Reference Frame (MRF) technique was used to simulate blade rotation, with the cylindrical region defined in frame motion mode at a rotational speed of 191 rpm about the turbine's central horizontal axis.

Conclusion

Turbine power (P) was calculated based on the torque applied to each blade (T), from which the pressure coefficient (Cp) was derived. These results were compared and validated against the corresponding values in Table 2 of the referenced article, which provides input and reference values used to compute the final torque and pressure coefficient figures.

The power and pressure coefficient formulas follow the article's methodology, with the present CFD results compared directly against the paper's reported values in the accompanying results table.