A comprehensive water tunnel test of a horizontal axis marine hydrokinetic turbine for model validation and verification

As interest in waterpower technologies has increased over the last few years, there has been a growing need for a public database of measured data for these devices. This would provide a basic understanding of the technology and means to validate analytic and numerical models. Through collaboration between Sandia National Laboratories, Penn State University Applied Research Laboratory, and University of California, Davis, a new marine hydrokinetic turbine rotor was designed, fabricated at 1:8.7-scale, and experimentally tested to provide an open platform and dataset for further study and development. The water tunnel test of this three-bladed, horizontal-axis rotor recorded power production, blade loading, near-wake characterization, cavitation effects, and noise generation. Additionally, preliminary comparisons are mode from unsteady CFD for the flow fields measured.