Abstract

Dr. Matthew Allmark will present work and results relating to an experimental campaign developed to contribute to the current research considering the operation of Horizontal Axis Tidal Turbines within stochastic flow conditions, namely turbulent and wake induced flows. The campaign was conducted at approximately a 1/20th-scale within a recirculating flume. Experiments were conducted over five differing setups, yielding a baseline low Turbulence Intensity case, two high turbulence cases and two upstream device generated wake cases. The experiments were conducted at a range of differing rotor velocities established, in a novel way, by utilising both fixed speed and fixed braking torque control. The paper presents analysis of flow measurements to statistically quantify the stochastic flow conditions impinging on the model-scale tidal turbine. The power, thrust, torque and blade root bending moment of single blade were recorded and analysed against the flow conditions generated under the five cases. The analysis showed that it may well be possible to exploit the accelerated region around an upstream turbine to capture marginally higher power (6% increase) from downstream turbines. The study compares observed load spectra with established spectral load models for tidal devices to consider the effects of control strategy and operating conditions on model performance.

Presenter Bio

Dr Matthew Allmark (MA) (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6812-3571) has recently been appointed as a Disglair (Brilliant/Bright) Lecturer within the Centre for Research into Energy, Waste and the Environment. Since gaining his PhD in 2016 studying the effects of realistic flows on tidal turbines (EP/J010200), MA has been an essential member of the Cardiff Marine Energy Research Group, most recently working on the EPSRC funded Dynamic Loading of Tidal Turbine Arrays (EP/N020782). During this time, MA has been PI on two MARINET2 (Horizon2020) projects with a combined value of £80k and has secured funding as a Co-I from EPSRC through CU’s impact acceleration account to study the effects of turbulence on tidal devices (£43k), as well as from UKCMER and Wave Energy Scotland to study array effects on tidal device performance (£60k). MA has a track record of working in an interdisciplinary team and has worked closely with domestic (University of Strathclyde, University of Southampton and Bangor University) and international researchers (NREL in the USA and INHA in South Korea). MA has over 30 journal and conference publications (h-index 8) related to modelling and testing wave effects in marine energy and device design & production.

Publication Date

11-5-2021

Document Type

Presentation

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