Influence of wakes interaction and upstream turbulence on three tidal turbines behaviour

Abstract

Abstract The current study presents numerical results on three tidal turbine models (two in front, one downstream) interacting in a turbulent upstream flow. The numerical results come from a lifting-line (LL) embedded in a Lagrangian vortex particle (VP) solver: Dorothy LL-VP. The objective is to assess the extent to which this numerical tool is suited to reproduce accurately wakes interaction as well as fluctuating loads perceived by the downstream turbine. To this aim, the numerical set-up reproduces an experimental campaign led at IFREMER’s wave and current flume tank. The downstream turbine is placed at different positions to change the wakes interaction. Two upstream turbulence intensities (TI) experimentally tested are reproduced numerically using the synthetic eddy method (SEM). Favourable comparisons are obtained between numerical and experimental wakes, including velocity profiles. Preliminary results suggest that the downstream turbine performance decrease is numerically well captured. More investigations are needed on the loads fluctuations with longer computation time, and adding an angular velocity controller as well as hub modelling to Dorothy LL-VP.