Parametric study of a vertical axis tidal turbine blade using the CFD method to achieve high turbine performance

The aim of this paper is to identify numerically the influence of some vertical axis tidal turbine blade design parameters to the turbine performance. The parameters are inlet fluid velocity, initial angle of attack, number of response motions, blade material stiffness constant. The blade is initially (before variations) exposed in a set of environmental condition which is executed by high Reynolds number (3,07x10
^-6
) flow. The turbine blade performance is evaluated from the time history lift, drag, and moment coefficients. A 2D CFD model of a single vertical axis tidal turbine blade is developed using OpenFOAM. The blade utilizes NACA 0012 profile. The performance of parametric models is compared to the performance of initial condition model. The results show that velocity and angle of attack variations significantly affect to the blade performance. It is also found that the number of response and stiffness constant variations generate unsteadiness in the turbine blade coefficients. This indicates that tidal velocity and blade orientation is more favourable to improve turbine’s performance.