TITLE:
A Numerical Prediction of Tip Vortices from Tandem Propellers in the Counter-Rotating Type Tidal Stream Power Unit
AUTHORS:
Hoyun Jung, Toshiaki Kanemoto, Pin Liu
KEYWORDS:
Tidal Stream Power Unit, Counter-Rotation, CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics), Tip Vortices, MRF (Multiple Reference Frame), Tandem Propellers
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Power and Energy Engineering,
Vol.5 No.12,
December
14,
2017
ABSTRACT: Ocean energy has a potential of providing a large amount of renewable energy around the world. One of the forms of ocean energy, tidal stream power is widely recognized as the continuous, predictable and eco-friendly ocean energy source. Unique tandem propellers that can counter-rotate have been designed to generate electric power effectively from a tidal stream. This type of power unit has several advantages compare to the conventional unit with a single propeller. At the design of the tidal stream power unit, it is important to investigate the structure of the tip vortex tubes shedding to predict the load of the propeller. In this research, we investigated the tip vortex shedding using the CFD method for the conventional single propeller and counter-rotating type tandem propellers and estimated the performance efficiency using RANS (Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes) model and we confirmed the limitation of RANS model on the calculation of the tip vortex stretching.