EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF THE DOE REFERENCE MODEL 1 HORIZONTAL AXIS HYDROKINETIC TURBINE

We present two studies, one experimental and another numerical, of a Horizontal Axis Hydrokinetic Turbine (HAHT) based on the DOE Reference Model 1. In the experiments, the performance and wake of a small array of three turbines was analyzed with measurements conducted on a 45:1 scale physical model of the DOE RM1 rotor. The influence of the Reynolds number dissimilarity between the laboratory model and the full scale is described. The numerical solution of the RANS equations solved around a computational model of the full scale geometry yield the details of the rotor flow field and wake evolution. The influence of turbulent closure models on the full scale Reynolds number flow is considered, as is the use of high resolution simulations in lower fidelity models for fast turn around, low computational cost, numerical design efforts.