| Citation |
Adcock, T.A.A., Serhadlioglu, S., Houlsby, G.T. and Borthwick, A.G.L. PerAWaT - Choice of Numerical Model (WG3 WP6 D1), ETI, 2010. https://doi.org/10.5286/UKERC.EDC.000392. Cite this using DataCite |
| 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.
This deliverable outlines the numerical modelling approach being taken for assessing interactions between tidal turbine devices at the coastal basin scale including a review of model validation and verification activities and justification of the 2D numerical code selected. The model’s flexibility to be extended to additional UK sites is reviewed. Following on from this deliverable, the tidal coastal basin-scale numerical model were developed and then subsequently compared with the other tidal numerical models developed within PerAWAT.
Understanding of basin scale changes to tidal flows is vital to an accurate resource assessment of a potential site for tidal stream energy. The University of Oxford will analyse three sites: the Pentland Firth, the Bristol Channel, and Anglesey
The University of Oxford will use the discontinuous Galerkin ADCIRC model for the basin scale modelling study. This differs from the original plan which was to use an in--house code OxTide. The reason for the change is due to the need for a code with a wetting and drying algorithm, and which is parallelised. ADCIRC is an open-source code developed by the US Corps of Engineers and various US Universities. The code has been extensively validated and used for numerous practical applications. Versions of the code have been used for modelling the extraction of energy from streams in real coastal basins.
The specific data used to create a tidal model are as important as the choice of the numerical code. Oxford University intends to source bathymetric data from Seazone. Tidal elevation both for the “forcing” of the model and for validation will be taken from the LEGOS model and current data for validation will be sourced from the British Oceanographic Data Centre |
