Influence of Blade Profiles on Flow around Wells Turbine

The Wells turbine rotor consists of several symmetric airfoil blades arranged around a central hub, and the stagger angle is 90 degrees. These characteristics simplify the total construction of OWC type wave energy converters. Although the Wells turbine is simple, the turbine produces a complicated flow field due to the peculiar arrangement of blades, which can rotate in the same direction irrespective of the oscillating airflow. In order to understand these flows, flow visualization is carried out with an oil-film method in the water tunnel. This research aims to analyze the mechanism of the 3-D flows around the turbine with the flow visualization. The flow visualization explained the influence of attack angle, the difference between fan-shaped and rectangular wings, and the sweep angle.