US Department of Energy (DOE) National Lab Activities in Marine Hydrokinetics: Scaled Model Testing of DOE Reference Turbines

Our aim in this paper is to present a brief overview of the scaled hydrokinetic turbine model testing activities in the United States using test turbines specifically designed by the US Department of Energy for its Marine and Hydrokinetic Research and Development program. These test turbines include: (1) a three-bladed horizontal axis turbine (the Sandia turbine) that was designed to demonstrate small scale verification and validation turbine design assessment; and (2) reference tidal and river turbines that were designed to develop baseline levelized cost of energy estimates. These scaled model turbine tests are generating performance and flow field data sets that will be fully documented and disseminated to the public. These data sets will enable MHK developers and researchers to validate their hydrokinetic turbine design and analysis models. In this paper, we present experimental results for two test turbines, including the scaled-model tests of the Sandia horizontal-axis turbine and the DOE’s reference river turbine. For the Sandia turbine tests, we compare experimental measurements with midand highfidelity hydrodynamic models and demonstrate their validity as design and analysis tools. The scaled model testing of DOE’s reference tidal and river turbines should be completed by the end of this year, with performance and flow field measurements available to the public in 2014. Keywords— current energy conversion, performance testing, reference models, marine hydrokinetic, computational fluid dynamics