Twisted savonius turbine based marine current energy conversion system

Hassan, Imtiaj (2012) Twisted savonius turbine based marine current energy conversion system. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

[English] PDF (Migrated (PDF/A Conversion) from original format: (application/pdf)) - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. Download (27MB) [English] PDF - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. (Original Version)

Abstract

The Ocean Network Seafloor Instrumentation (ONSFI) Project is a multidisciplinary research and development project that aims to design, fabricate and validate a proof-of-concept seafloor array of wireless marine sensors for use in monitoring seabed processes. The sensor pods, known as Seaformatics, will be powered by ocean bottom currents and will be able to communicate with each other and to the Internet through surface master units to facilitate observation of the ocean floor from the shore. This thesis explores the use of the twisted Savonius turbine as a means of converting the kinetic energy of the free flowing water into electrical energy for the pods. This will eliminate the need for battery replacement. A physical model of the turbine was constructed and tested in the Water Flume at the Marine Institute of Memorial University and in the Wind Tunnel in the Engineering Building at Memorial University. A mathematical model of the turbine was constructed in SolidWorks. This was tested in the Computational Fluid Dynamics or CFD software FLOW-3D. Experimental results were compared with CFD results and the agreement was reasonable. A twisted Savonius turbine emulator was developed to test a dc-dc boost converter. A low cost microcontroller based MPPT algorithm was developed to obtain maximum power from the turbine. Overall the thesis shows that the twisted Savonius turbine can provide the power needed by the sensor pods. It also shows that CFD is a viable way to study the performance of the Savonius type of turbine.

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