Impact of a Downstream Cylindrical Centrifugal Reverse Osmosis Module on Tidal Turbine Performance and Wake Recovery

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-1-2026

Publication Title

Renewable Energy

Abstract

Tidal turbine performance is strongly influenced by surrounding flow conditions, particularly the size and proximity of downstream structures. This study investigates the effects of the size and position of a downstream cylinder, representing a centrifugal reverse osmosis (CRO) module, on turbine performance and wake recovery. Transient computational fluid dynamics simulations are validated against experimental turbine performance and PIV velocity data without a downstream cylinder. Turbine performance is found to be Reynolds independent above 4 x 106 at the turbine's design point. The interaction of turbine flow and blade-induced vortices with the cylinder front is revealed through vorticity contours. Increasing the cylinder diameter or reducing the turbine-tocylinder distance decreases turbine performance and expands the recirculation region. Larger recirculation zones enhance wake recovery via increased entrainment. For a cylinder-to-turbine diameter ratio of 0.3 and a spacingto-turbine diameter ratio of 0.1, the cylinder reduced power and thrust by 20.3 % and 12.7 %, while improving wake recovery at x/Dt = 6 from 53 % (no-cylinder case) to 64 %. The cylinder reduced the pressure difference across the turbine, indicating decreased energy extraction capacity.

Comments

This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, EERE) under the Water Power Technologies Office (Award Number EE0010984) and the faculty start-up funding provided by the State University of New York at Binghamton.

DOI

10.1016/j.renene.2025.124806

Volume

257

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