Three-dimensional numerical simulation of a vertical axis tidal turbine using the two-way fluid structure interaction approach

Abstract

The objective of this study was to develop, as well as validate the strongly coupled method (two-way fluid structural interaction (FSI)) used to simulate the transient FSI response of the vertical axis tidal turbine (VATT) rotor, subjected to spatially varying inflow. Moreover, this study examined strategies on improving techniques used for mesh deformation that account for large displacement or deformation calculations. The blade's deformation for each new time step is considered in transient two-way FSI analysis, to make the design more reliable. Usually this is not considered in routine one-way FSI simulations. A rotor with four blades and 4-m diameter was modeled and numerically analyzed. We observed that two-way FSI, utilizing the strongly coupled method, was impossible for a complex model; and thereby using ANSYS-CFX and ANSYS-MECHANICAL in work bench, as given in ANSYS-WORKBENCH, helped case examples 22 and 23, by giving an error when the solution was run. To make the method possible and reduce the computational power, a novel technique was used to transfer the file in ANSYS-APDL to obtain the solution and results. Consequently, the results indicating a two-way transient FSI analysis is a time-and resource-consuming job, but with our proposed technique we can reduce the computational time. The ANSYS STRUCTURAL results also uncover that stresses and deformations have higher values for two-way FSI as compared to one-way FSI. Similarly, fluid flow CFX results for two-way FSI are closer to experimental results as compared to one-way simulation results. Additionally, this study shows that, using the proposed method we can perform coupled simulation with simple multi-node PCs (core i5).

Vibratory Reliability Analysis of an Aircraft’s Wing via Fluid–Structure Interactions

“…The evaluation of convergence is done at the end of every coupling iteration [17]. However, for the one-way coupling, thefluid solver does not receive the boundary displacement from the mechanical application, and the loads can be linked directly between the two systems.…”

Two-Way Fluid-Structure Coupling in Vibration and Damping Analysis of an Oscillating Hydrofoil

“…The resulting deflection of the solid field has then an impact on the fluid field that has to adapt to the modified boundary. Finally, if one considers unsteady effects, the fluid field not only acts as a driving force, but also as a damping influence on the solid field since fluid mass has to be displaced during the motion of the structure which requires additional energy (Khalid et al, 2013;Schmucker et al, 2010). The solution of such a multi-field simulation usually requires two separate solvers, one for the fluid (CFD) and one for the structure (FEM) that run in sequential order when the information is exchanged between the CFX and FEM solvers at synchronization points (SP).…”

Evaluation of Offshore Wind Turbine Tower Dynamics with Numerical Analysis

“…e one-way FSI analysis in wind turbines is being researched actively [20][21][22], and the two-way FSI model is being performed [23,24] to analyze structural stability, deformation, and stress due to environmental forces. In addition, semi-empirical models are developed as alternative applications to examine the dynamic behaviour.…”