RT journal article
T1 On the upscaling approach to wind tunnel experiments of horizontal axis hydrokinetic turbines
A1 Machuca Macías, Marianela
A1 Castilho Faria Mendes, Rafael
A1 Felamingo Oliveira, Taygoara
A1 Brasil Junior, Antonio C.P
A2 Ingeniería Mecánica y Diseño Industrial
K1 Hydrokinetic turbines
K1 Wind tunnel experiments
K1 Upscaling
K1 CFD simulations
AB In this work, we proposed an upscaling methodology to extrapolate results from wind tunnel experiments with small-scale model to the full-size hydrokinetic turbine. Small-scale 1:20 wind tunnel experiments (), with a three-blade horizontal axis turbine, were carried out looking to identify the characteristic curves of a full-size turbine operating in water (). The lack of dynamic similarity due to unmatched Reynolds numbers is analyzed in the framework of blade element momentum theory arguments. A new semi-empirical power-law equation is achieved, uniquely based on the BEM theory which relates the power coefficients of model and full-size turbine to the Reynolds numbers and a power factor, specific to each turbine. Computational fluid dynamic CFD simulations for the same rotor geometry, simulating different runners with varying diameters from small-scale model to full-scale turbine are carried out to validate the upscaling arguments, and to verify the accuracy of the power coefficient curves predicted by proposed methodology.
PB Springer
SN 1806-3691
YR 2020
FD 2020
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10498/38323
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10498/38323
LA eng
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Cádiz
RD 08-nov-2026