Wake numerical study of a vertical marine current turbine

The commercial exploitation of kinetic energy from tidal current involves deploying multiple turbines constituting a park or a farm. The turbines located within the park suffer from the disrupted flow due to the wake of machines located further upstream. This will potentially alter their performance. The evolution of the wake is influenced by the environment and by the machine. A two-dimensional model of a vertical axis turbine of Darrieus type was performed to investigate the flow within and downstream the turbine. The relative influences on the characteristics of the wake of two parameters were evaluated: the speed of the upstream flow and the Tip speed ratio λ. The latter seems to be dominant for the lack of speed while the level of turbulence is a function of the two parameters setting