Marine Renewables: an understanding of the dynamic components within the tidal flow and how this influences the power capture performance of tidal technology architecture

There are aspirations for tidal energy technology to make a major contribution to the UK’s future energy mix. This research will develop an understanding of the dynamic components within the tidal flow and how this influences the power capture performance of tidal technology architecture; and how the power capture interface, power transfer and take-off systems making up the turbine can be evolved to provide efficient, robust and cost effective operations

The PhD researcher will liaise and interact with an existing team of researchers within the Energy Systems Research Unit, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, working on tidal energy based research projects, while also interacting with co-investigators from leading international research groups engaged in these research projects. The research activities to be undertaken relates to the EPSRC funded projects ‘Dynamic Loading of Tidal Turbines within Arrays’ and the Feasibility of tidal power extraction from lesser energetic tidal sites, involving other PhD researchers and research associates from UK partner Universities. The focus of the research will investigate the impact of combined wave-current unsteady flows on the mechanical performance and structural integrity of tidal turbines and develop new understanding on how unsteady flows impacts on the energy yields from turbines individually and configured in arrays and how this unsteady flow propagates through different tidal array configurations. This new understanding, results and research output will impact on the assessment of performance and mechanical integrity of tidal technology architecture, turbine operating control strategies to mitigate the impacts on turbine mechanical integrity and the development of array layout configurations in order to maximise array energy yields. Evaluation of the power capture and conversion interface of tidal energy converters operating within unsteady flows together with the structural integrity and durability of the power capture and drive train interfaces will be evaluated through a combination of analytical and physical modelling, to include fluid-structure interactions and impact on mechanical loading. The research will include the following activities:

integrating sensors/ instrumentation within components and sub-systems, making up and devising scale marine energy converters for testing;theoretical and experimental research within larger scale physical testing infrastructure in the area of rotor sections, linkages with power transfer systems used in the power capture interface to evaluate mechanical integrity.investigations into the degradation in converter performance when operating in the more extreme marine environments e.g. combined wind/ wave enhanced tidal flows and when located at different localities within a tidal array layout.

Project Commencement date: 1 October 2018