Lattice Boltzmann Simulation of Hydro-Turbine Blade Hydrofoil in the Exploitation of Tidal Current Energy

As tidal current regarded as a sustainable resource to be exploited for future generation of electrical power, the hydrodynamics of hydro-turbine has become a focus in research for the extraction of energy from marine currents. The lift and drag characteristics of hydro-turbine’s blade hydrofoil are the key factors affecting efficiency and cavitation and vortex are considered as the important influences on life span of blade hydrofoil. Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM), a new numerical method of computational fluid dynamics, is adopted to simulate and analyze the performance of blade hydrofoil. NACA0012, NACA63-215, NACA2412, NACA4411 and NACA4424 are simulated at different angles of attack using D2Q9 model and boundary condition of nonequilibrium bounce-back scheme to obtain pressure coefficient, lift coefficient, drag coefficient and streamline in each regime. Suitable hydrofoil and angle of attack can be chosen and utilized based on the results obtained which compared well with the results published in the technical literature, and accuracy and feasibility of LB method for engineering application are verified simultaneously.Copyright © 2010 by ASME