Hydrodynamic Performance Analysis of the Vertical Axis Twin-Rotor Tidal Current Turbine

The goal of this manuscript is to investigate the influence of relative distance between the twin rotors on the hydrodynamic performance of the vertical axis twin-rotor tidal current turbine. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations based on commercial software ANSYS-CFX have been performed to enhance the understanding of interactions between the twin-rotors. The interactions between the twin rotors are known to have increased the power output efficiency as a whole, and it is, therefore, of great significance to undertake deeper research. The simulation results are found to be consistent with similar research results in the literature in some aspects. The simulation results of stand-alone turbine and twin rotors are compared from three different aspects, including blade forces, power output efficiency and wake flow field. The results showed that the cyclic variations tendency of blade force coefficients of twin rotors is close to that of the stand-alone turbine. The average power output efficiency of the twin-rotors system is higher than that of the stand-alone turbine. The interactions between the turbines increase the power output of the twin turbine system as whole in a wide relative distance range. However, smaller relative distance between the twin rotors does not mean a bigger power output efficiency of such a system. The power out efficiency of such a system would decrease when the relative distance between the twin rotors exceeds the critical point. The power output of the twin rotors reaches the peak value when the ratio between the two main axis distance and diameter of the turbine is around 9/4. This research can provide a reference for the design and development of larger tidal power stations.