Marine Turbine Hydrodynamics by a Boundary Element Method with Viscous Flow Correction

A computational methodology for the hydrodynamic analysis of horizontal axis marine current turbines is presented. The approach is based on a boundary integral equation method for inviscid flows originally developed for marine propellers and adapted here to describe the flow features that characterize hydrokinetic turbines. To this purpose, semi-analytical trailing wake and viscous-flow correction models are introduced. A validation study is performed by comparing hydrodynamic performance predictions with two experimental test cases and with results from other numerical models in the literature. The capability of the proposed methodology to correctly describe turbine thrust and power over a wide range of operating conditions is discussed. Viscosity effects associated to blade flow separation and stall are taken into account and predicted thrust and power are comparable with results of blade element methods that are largely used in the design of marine current turbines. The accuracy of numerical predictions tend to reduce in cases where turbine blades operate in off-design conditions.