Canal Turbine Blade

Last crawled date: 1 year, 11 months ago

Update:
Relevant journal article "Numerical Investigation of the Effect of Leading-Edge Tubercles on Propeller Performance" Read More: https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/1.C034845

Relevant publication: http://www.iaeng.org/publication/WCE2018/WCE2018_pp586-595.pdf

My final entry in this challenge, again related to fluid dynamics, it's a concept I am working on (some of my initial designs: https://grabcad.com/library/canal-turbine-blade-structure-wip-1 (May 2015) and https://grabcad.com/library/turbine-blade-15 (May 2015)) (https://grabcad.com/library/tidal-turbine-fuel-water-vawt-in-hawt-mode-fuel-air-1 (January 2016) and https://grabcad.com/library/tidal-turbine-2 (January 2016)).

This turbine blade also utilizes the concept of leading edge tubercles (https://grabcad.com/library/rear-wing-formula-one-dimensions-2, https://grabcad.com/library/modified-rotor-blade-1, https://grabcad.com/library/modified-helical-darrieus-wind-turbine-blade-1 and https://grabcad.com/library/modified-10x4-7-propeller-1) which makes it more aerodynamically efficient than a similar blade without these tubercles.

This blade is 4.76 in in span. The blade is made up of three different hydrofoils at root, mid section and tip. Blade pitch is ~17 degrees at root and ~3 degrees at the tip in an attempt of keeping the AOA constant (as much as possible) because tip velocities are much higher.

You can put these turbines in irrigation canals and they can power nearby villages and all the irrigation equipment etc.

There are many advantages of canal turbines over wind turbines, prominent one's being:

1 No compressibility:
Water is a lot easier to work with as compressibility is rarely a factor as compared to air.

2. Unidirectional flow
Water flows in one direction in a canal so we don't need the complicated pitch and yaw control surfaces as in case of wind turbines.

3. Constant flow rate
We (humans) control water flow rate through canals and it's almost constant throughout the year, so we don't have to worry about blade aero foil design to suit variable/abruptly variable flow rate.

4. Large Electricity potential
Canals are 100s of km long, imagine the electricity potential in the canals. You can put these turbines in irrigation canals and it'll power nearby towns/villages and all the irrigation equipment etc.

5. Higher Power/Discharge Ratio
Water is ~816 times dense (powerful) than air, so for the same discharge (flow) rate we get 816 times more power. Which means more we can make turbine designs that are smaller and easier to manage.

6. Easy maintenance
Fitted less than ~1 m deep inside the canal and can be retracted for maintenance at ground level, making maintenance very easy.

I have no access to a 3D printer, my engineering judgment says these blades must be printable without any problems, after being rotated at 90 degrees around z-axis (based on the SolidWorks co-ordinate system); as shown in r1 render.