A Twin Unidirectional Impulse Turbine for Wave Energy Conversion

Shinya Okuhara, Manabu Takao, Akiyasu Takami, Toshiaki Setoguchi

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Matsue College of Technology, Matsue, Japan.
Institute of Ocean Energy, Saga University, Saga, Japan.
Techno Center, Matsue College of Technology, Matsue, Japan.

DOI: 10.4236/ojfd.2012.24A043                

Abstract

A twin unidirectional impulse turbine has been proposed in order to enhance the performance of wave energy plant. This turbine system uses two unidirectional impulse turbines and their flow direction is different each other. However, the effect of guide vane solidity on the turbine characteristics has not been clarified to date. The performances of a uni- directional impulse turbine under steady flow conditions were investigated experimentally by using a wind tunnel with large piston/cylinder in this study. Then, mean efficiency of the twin impulse turbine in bidirectional airflow has been estimated by a quasi-steady analysis using experimental results in order to investigate the effect of guide vane solidity on the performance.

Keywords

Fluid Machinery; Impulse Turbine; Wave Energy Conversion; Ocean Energy

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	T. Setoguchi and M. Takao, “Current Status of SelfRectifying Air Turbines for Wave Energy Conversion,” Energy Conversion and Management, Vol. 47, No. 15-16, 2006, pp. 2382-2396. doi:10.1016/j.enconman.2005.11.013
[2]	M. Takao, T. Setoguchi, K. Kaneko, T. H. Kim, H. Maeda and M. Inoue, “Impulse Turbine for Wave Power Conversion with Air Flow Rectification System,” International Journal of Offshore and Polar Engineering, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2002, pp. 142-146.
[3]	V. Jayashankar, S. Anand, T. Geetha, S. Santhakumar, V. J. Kumar, M. Ravindran, T. Setoguchi, M. Takao, K. Toyota and S. Nagata, “A Twin Unidirectional Topology for OWC Based Wave Energy Plants,” Renewable Energy, Vol. 34, No. 3, 2009, pp. 692-698. doi:10.1016/j.renene.2008.05.028
[4]	T. Setoguchi, K. Kaneko, H. Maeda, T. W. Kim and M. Inoue, “Impulse Turbine with Self-Pitch-Controlled Guide Vanes for Power Conversion: Performance of Mono-Vane type,” International Journal of Offshore and Polar Engineering, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1993, pp. 73-78.
[5]	M. Takao, A. Takami, S. Okuhara and T. Setoguchi, “A Twin Unidirectional Impulse Turbine for Wave Energy Conversion,” Journal of Thermal Science, Vol. 20, No. 5, 2011, pp. 394-397. doi:10.1007/s11630-011-0486-1