Numerical Simulation On Hydrodynamic Performance Of Flexible Blade Turbine

Flexible blade turbine is an innovative device of utilizing tidal streams with blades made of flexible material. Using Lift and Drag force to drive turbine as flexible blade deforming to fit different streams, the turbine has high power coefficient. Flexible blade turbine can self-starting even in low velocity of streams, so it can keep working in wide velocity flow. And the turbine has other merits, such as fixed turning direction to different streams, simple structure, lightweight, easy delivery and installation. So flexible blade turbine has a promising prospects. But as new device there are more to research to optimize its hydrodynamic performance, and much more work to do before its practical application.Computational fluid dynamics(CFD) is now widely used in automotive, marine, aviation, hydropower, environmental protection and other fields. In this paper the flexible blade turbine is researched by CFD method to get predicting performance. However the complex fluid-solid interaction(FSI) between flexible blade and fluid, the route of fluid-solid interaction, solution method and so on have to be studied.In this paper, combining the research of flapping-wing, sail-wing, heart valve, vascular tumors and other related knowledge, the knowledge of fluid-solid interaction is studied and the motheds of FSI are discussed. The flexible blade shape in stream is obtained form FSI analysis. Based on experimental reseach of flexible blade turbine, investigating the numerical simulation method of the flexible blades turbine, a simplified way is gained. And the experimental result verified the effect of the simplified way.As follows are the main result of this paper:Analysised the FSI process between flexible blade and streams, giving the basis for the numerical simulation of flexible blade turbine.Investigated the numerical simulation method of the flexible blades turbine, a simplified way is obtained.Analysised the single flexible blade hydrodynamics. The flexible blade torque in a cycle is positive. And the drag torque gives the main contributions.Analysised the tip-speed-ratio, arc-chord-ratio, blade-angle infections to flexible blade turbine performance. Tip-speed-ratio is an important parameters for turbine power generation system and can be used for electric control system designe.