Numerical study of a guide-vane-augmented vertical darrieus tidal-currentturbine

It is reported that the augmented vertical axis turbine (VAT) has a better operating performance. A guide-vane type augmentation is proposed in this study, with a simpler outline and a better adaptability to various directions of the incident water flow, as compared to the duct-type diffuser. A 2?D numerical model based on the computational fluid dynamics software ANSYS-Fluent is established and validated by experimental data. It is found that the guide vanes could narrow the flow path together with the VAT rotor and increase the flow velocity around the blades. The fluctuation of the instantaneous torque output is significantly reduced by using the guide-vane stator. The numerical results indicate that a four blades setup is suitable for the stator and the chord length of the guide vane should be equal to that of the rotor blade. The gap between the stator and the rotor is suggested to be a quarter of the chord length of the rotor blades. The non-zero pitch angle of the guide vane is found to have negative effects on the torque and the power output. The averaged power and torque coefficients for three non-zero directional angles of the incident flow are approximately 30% lower than those for the zero-directional angle.