DESIGN AND OPTIMIZATION OF A TIDAL TURBINE AND FARM

Tidal ocean power is a dependable and dense form of renewable energy which is a relatively underdeveloped field. This study optimizes a tidal turbine with respect to performance and economics, and then optimizes a farm to be economically feasible. It was determined that the southeastern portion of the Gulf Stream, Florida current, would be used for the tidal turbine system as it has some of the world's fastest velocities and is relatively close to shore. The vertical axis designs were ruled out from extended research on turbine design for their lower efficiency in general. Only horizontal axis designs were tested in simulated environments. Using SolidWorks Flow Simulation and SolidWorks Simulation, turbine models were optimized and selected as having the potential for the greatest energy extraction. Static and fatigue analyses were conducted on the optimized models in order to prevent premature failure. Cost analysis was also performed on the turbine models and the model that had the lowest initial cost as well as the highest power generation was chosen for farm development. The optimized design produced reasonable amount of power considering varying velocities throughout the day having a diameter of about 30 m. Through fatigue analysis the optimized design also showed long enough lifetime so that a good return on investment can be acquired. The single optimized turbine was then placed in a farm, and the farm's shape and arrangement were tested and optimized so that the best arrangement and distances between units could be found. It was found that a farm 1.25 kilometers by 20 kilometers consisting of 800 turbines would be optimal. The farm would produce an average of 249.33 megawatts for a profit of $294.88 million dollars annually. The farm would pay for itself in 7.12 years and have an expected life span of 26.1 years which was obtained through fatigue analysis.