Yes / This study presents results from laboratory experiments to investigate the wake structure in the lee side of a scaled three-bladed horizontal axis tidal stream turbine with a mono-pile support structure. Experiments are conducted for a range of approaching flow velocity and installation height of rotor. Analysis of the results shows that bed shear stress increases with the increase of approaching velocity and decrease of installation height within 2D (D is the diameter of the rotor) downstream of the rotor. The flow field within 2D downstream of the rotor is greatly influenced by the presence of nacelle and mono-pile. Low stream-wise flow velocity and large turbulence intensity level is detected along the flume center right behind the nacelle and mono-pile from 1D to 2D downstream of the rotor. Stream-wise velocity at the blade tip height lower than the nacelle increases sharply from 1D to 2D and gradually grows afterwards. Correspondingly, the turbulence intensity decreases quickly from 1D to 2D and slowly afterwards. Large bed shear stress is measured from 1D to 2D, which is closely related to turbulence induced by the mono-pile. It is also found that the presence of the mono-pile might make the flow field more ‘disc-shaped’. / National Key Research and Development Program of China (No.2017YFC1404200), the Marine Renewable Energy Research Project of State Oceanic Administration (No.GHME2015GC01), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (No.2017B696X14) and the Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province, China (No.KYCX17_0448)

The predictive capabilities of blade-resolved unsteady Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) and detached eddy simulation (DES), the most commonly used hybrid RANS/large eddy simulation (LES) model, are assessed for hydrokinetic turbine performance and mean and turbulent flows in the intermediate-wake region, and results for a range of tip-speed ratio encompassing design and off-design conditions are analyzed to understand the wake recovery mechanism. The performance predictions compared within 5% of the experimental data. Both URANS and DES models performed reasonably well for the near wake predictions, where the errors were < 15%. DES outperformed URANS for both mean wake deficit and turbulence predictions in the intermediate-wake region and both quantities compared within 10% of the experiments. The improved prediction by DES is because of 1) its ability to predict the tip vortex breakdown, which plays a critical role in the wake recovery, especially for higher tip speed ratios; 2) the presence of the free-surface which created an upper bypass region of accelerated flow. The study reveals that the tip vortex breakdown mechanism depends on tip speed ratio. For lower values of tip speed ratio, instabilities generated in the root vortex core are identified to be the cause of breakdown. For higher values, the breakdown occurred because of the instabilities generated during the vortex filament entanglement. The presence of the free-surface led to an early vortex breakdown and the interaction between the wake and free-surface is initiated by the interaction of stanchion with the free-surface. Future work should focus on investigation of other hybrid RANS/LES models to address the limitations of the DES models, and extension of the study to include wave effects.

This Thesis presents simulation of flow past laboratory-scale and full-scale tidal stream turbines (TST) using EDF's open-source CFD solver Code_Saturne. The work shows that detailed results may be obtained with confidence and that greater information on the loading and wake structure is available than other methods, such as blade element momentum theory.Results are obtained using a new sliding-mesh method that has been implemented in Code_Saturne as part of this work. The sliding-mesh method uses internal Dirichlet boundary conditions with values on the interface prescribed via a halo-point method. Parallel performance is optimised by a carefully-chosen method of exchanging information between specific processes. Validation is provided for flow past a rotating cylinder and a sphere.For the laboratory-scale TST, Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes models are used to model turbulence. The k-omega-SST and Launder-Reece-Rodi (LRR) models yield good agreement with experimental values of power and thrust coefficients as a function of tip-speed ratio (TSR). The standard k-epsilon model is shown to perform poorly due to an overprediction of turbulent kinetic energy upstream of the rotor plane. The k-omega-SST model is then used to examine wake behaviour for parametric studies of turbulence intensity and TSR. Increased turbulence levels are shown to reduce the downstream propagation of the wake because of increased mixing. The near wake is influenced by the TSR, whilst the far wake is independent of TSR.The predicted effect of tidal conditions typical of the EMEC test site are considered for flow past Tidal Generation Limited's 1MW TST. The effect of sheared-velocity profiles leads to an increase in loading on an individual turbine blade at the point of a rotation where velocity shear is greatest. The effect of increased yaw angle leads to large fluctuations of the power coefficient, but smaller fluctuations of the thrust coefficient. Mean values of thrust and power decrease as a function of the cosine of the yaw angle and yaw angle squared respectively.

Le développement des énergies renouvelables passe par l’exploitation de nouvelles sources d’énergie. La filière hydrolienne, dédiée à la récupération de l’énergie des courants de marée, est proche de l’industrialisation. Cependant, les conditions hydrodynamiques turbulentes des sites hydroliens sont encore mal connues. Cette thèse propose d’examiner à l’échelle locale l’effet des rugosités du fond marin sur la génération de tourbillons hautement énergétiques par la simulation numérique en mécanique des fluides de type méthode de Boltzmann sur réseau. Cette méthode est particulièrement adaptée à la simulation d’écoulements instationnaires sur un domaine de simulation complexe. Dans un premier temps, les phénomènes physiques de détachements tourbillonnaires sur des macro-rugosités canoniques sont décrits. L’appariement de structures tourbillonnaires est mis en évidence dans le processus de formation de tourbillons hautement énergétiques. Dans un deuxième temps, la simulation permet d’observer de tels phénomènes dans le cas d’écoulements environnementaux intégrant une bathymétrie réelle. Ces simulations, validées par rapport à des mesures in situ, mènent à une meilleure compréhension des effets du fond marin sur la turbulence en milieu hydrolien. En particulier, l’importance des failles géologiques dans la génération de turbulence dans la zone d’étude est mise en évidence. / Renewable energy development calls for exploitation of new energy resources. Tidal stream power harvesting is now close to the industrialisation step. Still, turbulent hydrodynamic conditions at tidal sites are not well understood. This thesis aims to investigate the local scale effect of sea bottom roughnesses on energetic vortex generation with computational fluid simulations using the lattice Boltzmann method. This method is highly indicated for unsteady flow simulations of complex domains. First, the physical phenomena involved in vortex emission around canonical macroroughnesses are described. Vortex merging is identified in the generation process of energetic vortices. Then, such physical events are reproduced in the case of environmental flow simulations using a real seabed morphology. These simulations are validated on in situ measured data, and lead to a better understanding of the sea bottom effect on tidal stream site turbulence. They demonstrate the role of geological faults on the local turbulence.

The present time demands emission-free and carbon-free sources of energy. This fact is not only subject of international agreements and European Union regulations, but also the state of environment points out to an essential change in energy generation of mankind. Tidal stream provides very stable and predictable source of “green” energy. Compared to other renewable energy sources tidal stream turbines in exceptional localities are able to supply energy continuously, making them base load source. The aim of the thesis was to create an extensive document with recent tidal stream power information, which has not been available in Czech language yet. Last part of the research is focused on co-locating tidal stream and off-shore wind turbines. Second part of the thesis is dedicated to aerodynamic design of single-stage horizontal axis tidal stream turbine with rated electric power of 1 MW. Calculation according to the blade cascade theory was used to design blade geometry and to find rotor diameter of 14 meters for rated stream velocity of 3.05 m/s.