Control System Design and Implementation at Flexible, Distributed Offshore Sensor Test Sites in the Yangtze Estuary Area

Marine in situ testing is a necessary step for stereotyping newly developed marine sensors. The use of test sites in the Yangtze Estuary area, which has high turbidity and abundant nutrients, can effectively reduce the needed testing time owing to its harsh conditions. Five test stations were established, and a floating buoy and fixed test equipment were designed. A control system, including a sensor connection, data processor, video remote transmission, and corresponding control algorithm, was developed. The control system enabled the nondestructive monitoring of biological attachments and bidirectional, real-time communication between an upper server on land and the control system at the test sites. The dissolved oxygen(DO), temperature, and pH data of DOS600 and DPS600 sensors were compared with those of AP2000 sensors. Temperature recording using the DOS600 sensor was performed nearly as well as that of the AP2000 sensor. The mean DO values(standard deviations) were 8.414 mg L-1(2.068) and 6.896 mg L-1(1.235) for the DOS600 and AP2000 sensors, respectively, indicating that the DOS600 performance was unsatisfactory. The pH recording of the DPS600 was slightly worse than that of the AP2000 sensor. Experimental results showed that the DO value was more easily affected by the buoy movement of waves compared to the pH and temperature. Moreover, data fluctuations showed that the DO and pH parameters were more vulnerable to biofouling than temperature. Waves and biofouling create a harsh test environment, and the performance difference between the developed sensors and a standard sensor can be obtained in a short time period.

Design and Test of 1/5th Scale Horizontal Axis Tidal Current Turbine

Tidal current energy is prominent and renewable. Great progress has been made in the exploitation technology of tidal current energy all over the world in recent years, and the large scale device has become the trend of tidal current turbine （TCT） for its economies. Instead of the similarity to the wind turbine, the tidal turbine has the characteristics of high hydrodynamic efficiency, big thrust, reliable sealing system, tight power transmission structure, etc. In this paper, a l/5th scale horizontal axis tidal current turbine has been designed, manufactured and tested before the full scale device design. Firstly, the three-blade horizontal axis rotor was designed based on traditional blade element momentum theory and its hydrodynamic performance was predicted in numerical model. Then the power train system and stand-alone electrical control unit of tidal current turbine, whose performances were accessed through the bench test carried out in workshop, were designed and presented. Finally, offshore tests were carried out and the power performance of the rotor was obtained and compared with the published literatures, and the results showed that the power coefficient was satisfactory, which agrees with the theoretical predictions.

A NUMERICAL MODEL OF OFFSHORE CURRENTS AND SOME TESTS

In this paper,a simple numerical model of offshore currents is presented. A calculation scheme based on the isometric,implicit difference method is used and the points at which various physical quantities are computed are distributed in a staggered form.The finite difference scheme designed here conserve total generalized energy and it is solved by splitting into three systems,namely,the adjustment,development and dissipation processes.The results of the numerical verification indicate that this scheme is computational stable,and the simulated results are encouraging.