| Abstract |
The Performance Assessment of Wave and Tidal Array Systems (PerAWaT) project, launched in October 2009 with £8m of ETI investment. The project delivered validated, commercial software tools capable of significantly reducing the levels of uncertainty associated with predicting the energy yield of major wave and tidal stream energy arrays. It also produced information that will help reduce commercial risk of future large scale wave and tidal array developments.
Validation of the numerical models developed in TidalFarmer is essential in order to predict the expected energy yield with a quantifiable level of uncertainty. This will provide stakeholder confidence in the planning, investment and maintenance of a tidal array and will help accelerate growth of the tidal energy industry. The purpose of the interim report is to detail how PerAWAT data sets will be used to validateeach model, the current results of model validation and uncertainty analysis. Further work that is required to have confidence in the model predictions is also discussed. Experimental measurements taken in the near wake region have been analysed to determine the wake width and maximum velocity deficit. This will form part of a parameterisation study in order to assess the capability and limitations the GH near wake model.
It will be seen that the current data sets provide extensive information, but do not cover a sufficient number of rotor performance points such as Ct and ambient turbulence intensity. The GH flow field model is a solution to flow along a flat plate. Given that the seabed at tidal sites of interest is likely to be uneven, the GH flow model will be compared to a variety of experimental and numerical data sets for flow over varying bathymetry. The primary aimwill be to assess the capability of the model to recover flow acceleration and deceleration. |
