70th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics (November 19, 2017 — November 21, 2017)

V0029: Working towards a green future: Counter-rotating vertical axis turbines in marine environment

Authors

• Minh Doan, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Keio University
• Claudio Padricelli , Department of Mechanical Engineering, Keio University
• Shinnosuke Obi, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Keio University
• Yoshitaka Totsuka , Wind Energy Institute of Tokyo Inc.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/APS.DFD.2017.GFM.V0029

The observed rise of average temperature in the Earth’s atmosphere, growing awareness of greenhouse effect, and increasing energy demand of today’s economy raise the need of investigation in renewable energy system such as wind, solar, and water power. Marine renewable energy represents an enormous resource for clean electricity production, given that more than 70% of the Earth is covered by water.

Previous studies indicated that wind farms with counter-rotating vertical-axis wind turbines (VATs) potentially produce up to an order of magnitude higher power density. We hope to experimentally observe similar behavior in marine environment and explain the mechanism behind this power production enhancement through computational fluid dynamic (CFD) analysis.