Performance investigation of the crossflow water turbine by using CFD

Abstract

Crossflow water turbines can be an alternative energy for the development of pico-hydro power plants. Multiple interactions that occur from the flow of fluid that collides with the blade is one of the advantages of the crossflow type so that this turbine has a high power coefficient. The power coefficient of a turbine is influenced by several factors, including the blade depth ratio and blade number. The objective of this research was to study the effect of blade depth ratio and blade number on the power coefficient of crossflow water turbines. This research was done in 2 dimensions method (2D) using ANSYS Fluent software. Variations of blade depth ratios used in this study were 10%, 20%, and 30%, while variations of the blade number were 16, 19, and 22. Each variation was tested at tip speed ratio (TSR) 0, 0.109, 0.218, 0.327, and 0.436 with a constant water velocity of 3 m/s. The results of this research indicated that the crossflow water turbine at TSR 0.436 with blade depth ratio of 10% and blade number of 16 generated the highest power coefficient, which was equal to 0.187.