Ocean Engineering 172 (2019) 446–455

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Ocean Engineering
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/oceaneng

Moment loads acting on a blade of an ocean current turbine in shear flow T

Kazuomi Yahagi, Ken Takagi ∗

Dept. of Ocean Technology, Policy, and Environment, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Japan

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: The Kuroshio flowing near Japan is one of the largest ocean currents and it is considered that this energy possibly
Current turbine be an important energy source for Japan. A full-scale generator with twin 40m turbine rotors is planned for at
Moment load the rated flow speed of 1.5 m/s. Estimation of the blade loads are crucial for such big turbines. We focus on the
Blade moment in the shear flow effect of shear flow on an ocean current turbine and highlight the periodic fluctuation of moment loads at the
CFD of turbine blade
blade root induced by the shear flow. Shear flow experiments and numerical computation with a commercial
code were conducted for estimating the moment loads on a blade. The numerical computation was verified
through the comparisons with the measured Cp and Ct in uniform flow. The numerical results of moment load in
the shear flow are validated through the comparison with the experimental results. It is concluded that the
moment loads are well estimated by the present CFD method. Using the same CFD method, some applications are
shown.

1. Introduction
The Kuroshio flowing near Japan is one of the largest ocean currents
and it is considered that this energy possibly be an important energy
source for Japan. The New Energy and Industrial Technology
Development Organization (NEDO) and IHI corporation have devel-
oped a 100 kW class ocean current turbine system named “Kairyu” and
successfully conducted a sea trial at the Tokara Islands in 2017 (IHI,
2017). Although the turbine diameter for 100 kW system is about 11m,
it is expected that the diameter will be 40m for the 1 MW full scale
generator at the rated flow speed of 1.5 m/s (Takagi et al., 2012).
Estimation of the blade loads are crucial for the design of such big
turbines. Especially the periodic fluctuation of the blade load is im-
portant for fatigue design. Blade load fluctuations are supposed to be
induced by the turbulence, wave orbital motion and vertical profile of
the inflow. In the case of tidal currents, a simple two-dimensional
boundary layer shape based on the assumption of shallow water flow is
often used to represent the vertical profile of flows (DNV, 2015). On the
contrary, variation of profiles in the inflow for the ocean current tur-
bine is supposed to be complex, since the water depth at the sea area
where the current turbines will be deployed is deep.
Thus, a simple two-dimensional boundary layer shape based on the
assumption of shallow water flow may not be applicable. In addition,
the influence of internal waves could be expected, though this is still
under investigation. For example, Kodaira et al. (2014) investigated
nonlinear internal waves in the Kuroshio. Kiyomatsu et al. (Kiyomatsu
et al., 2014) measured the vertical profile of the Kuroshio near Miyake
Island, and they reported that there is a strong shear flow near the free
surface. Thus, we focus on the shear flow effect in this paper, and the
periodic fluctuation of moment loads at the blade root induced by the
shear flow is highlighted because the bending moment is one of the
important parameters for the structural design of a blade.
In the field of wind turbines, the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory (NREL) summarized test results of the blade load due to the
non-uniform wind (Hand et al., 2001), and NREL also provide a numer-
ical model for estimation of blade loads (Jonkman and Buhl, 2005). Lit-
eratures on various numerical methods including the CFD are also
available (for example (Hansen et al., 2006)) References in the literature
dealing with non-uniform effects on tidal turbines also can be found. For
example, Milne et al. (2013) measured blade loads in planar oscillatory
flow and in spatially uniform unsteady flow (Milne et al., 2015). Faudota
et al. (Faudota and Dahlhauga, 2012) conducted a wave loads measure-
ments. Blackmore et al. (2016) and Mycek et al. (2014a) (Mycek et al.,
2014b) studied effects of turbulence. Gaurier et al. (2013) measured a
turbine blade strain under current and wave loading. On the other hand,
numerical approaches are also found. Ahmed et al. (2017) made a com-
parison of CFD with field data on fluctuating loads due to velocity shear
and turbulence. Parkinson et al. (Parkinson and Collier, 2016) conducted
a field measurement and compared with results by a commercial soft-
ware. O'Rourke et al. (O'Rourke et al., 2015) proposed a mathematical
model for the Blade Element Method (BEM) to predict the hydrodynamic
performance of a tidal turbine in non-uniform inflow conditions.

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: takagi@k.u-tokyo.ac.jp (K. Takagi).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2018.12.026
Received 24 March 2018; Received in revised form 5 December 2018; Accepted 5 December 2018
Available online 13 December 2018
0029-8018/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
K. Yahagi, K. Takagi Ocean Engineering 172 (2019) 446–455

25.2
100.7
40

390 60

unit : mm Center of turbine rotor

Turbine axis
y z
Fig. 1. Plane view of the blade. x

Table 1 (a)
Summary of the numerical method.
Items Methods

Solution 1st order implicit

Turbulence model SST k-ω model
Velocity-pressure coupling SIMPLE method
Gradient calculation Least Squares Cell Based
Discretization Momentum 2nd order upwind
k 1st order upwind
ω 1st order upwind
y

Inlet
(b)
Fig. 3. Detail of the mesh. (a) Meshing on the blade surface. (b) Meshing near
the blade tip.
Outlet

65 152

Rotational region
390 unit: mm
W.L

900
z
120 550
120
y
Stational region
0.0 4.0 8.0(m) x
2.0 6.0
390
Fig. 2. Overall computational domain.

570
In the present work, experiments in a circulating water channel,
where a shear flow was created, and in an ocean engineering basin were Fig. 4. Principal dimensions of the turbine rotor.
conducted, and numerical estimations of the blade loads were also
carried out by a commercial CFD code and compared with the experi-
mental results. where the definition of r is found in Fig. 1. It is noted that two blades
are equipped as a turbine rotor because the Kairyu (IHI, 2017) uses two
2. Numerical computation of the blade loads bladed turbines for better performance in the installation and the
maintenance. It is also noted that, although the experimental model has
2.1. Blades and hub a boss at the center of rotor, the boss is ignored for the numerical
calculations to reduce the computational effort.
Since the aim of this study is to reveal the effect of shear flow, a It is noted that we focused on the blade moment load in this study as
popular wing section is used, and the twisting angle is presented by a mentioned above. The moment about the turbine axis and an axis
simple equation. The blade used in the present work is designed by perpendicular to the r-axis and turbine axis are defined as Mx and My
referring to NMRI's blade (Chujo et al., 2017). NACA0012 is used for respectively. Non-dimensional forms of Mx and My are defined as
the wing section and the plan view of the blade is a trapezoid as shown
Mx My
in Fig. 1, where the size of the blade is the same as that of experimental CMx = 1
, CMy = 1
U 2 AR U 2AR (2)
model which will be mentioned in section 3. 2 2
The twisting angle of the blade is represented as
where U is the inflow velocity at the turbine center, A is the projection
= tan 1 450
tan 1 1 area of the turbine rotor, R is the radius of the turbine rotor and is the
11r 11 (1) water density.

447
K. Yahagi, K. Takagi Ocean Engineering 172 (2019) 446–455

Length of test section=4.9m

Velocity meter

0.55m
Velocity meter

0.55m

0.55m

Depth = 1.2m
Inlet 0.6m 0.6m
1.5m
Turbine
0.8m
Screen×3
Side view 0.57m
1.5m
Fig. 5. Arrangement of the experiment in a circulating water channel.

0.45 0.035 Circulating water channel

Velocity meter1
0.030 Ocean Engineering Basin
0.30 Velocity meter2
0.025
0.15
0.020

CMx
Z [m]

0.00 0.015
-0.15 0.010
0.005
-0.30
0.000
-0.45 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 10.0 11.0 12.0
0.30 0.35 0.40 0.45 0.50 0.55 0.60 TSR
Velocity [m/s] (a) Mx
Fig. 6. Time averaged vertical profile of the shear flow in a circulating water 0.70
channel. The shear is created by three screens. Circulating water channel
0.60 Ocean Engineering Basin
0.40 0.50
0.35 0.40
CMy

0.30 0.30
0.20
0.25
0.10
CMy

0.20
0.00
0.15 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 10.0 11.0 12.0
TSR
0.10
(b) My
0.05 Fig. 8. Comparisons of time averaged (a) Mx and (b) My measured in the cir-
culating water channel and in the ocean engineering basin.
0.00
0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 uj
p u 2 ui
Time[s] ( ui ) + ( u i uj ) = + [µ ( i + ij )]
t xi xi xi xi xi 3 xi
Fig. 7. Time history of My in the uniform flow. Measurement has been done in
the ocean engineering basin. + ( ui uj )
xj (4)

2.2. Solver and mesh
ANSYS Fluent ver.18.0 is used for the numerical computation. Since
the flow is incompressible, the conservation of mass is satisfied as
+ ( ui ) = 0
t xi
where, the Cartesian-coordinate system x i is used and ui denotes the
fluid velocity. The Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations (RANS
equations) is solved by the Fluent. The RANS equation is represented as
where, denotes the pressure, µ the viscosity, ij the Kronecker delta, ui
the turbulent component and the over bar denotes the time average.
The last term is obtained by using a turbulence model. In this paper, the
SST k-ω turbulence model (Menter, 1993) is used. Other important
information on the solver is shown in Table 1.
The Reynolds number is 2.2×105 at the tip of the blade when the tip
(3) speed ratio (TSR) is 11.0 and the inflow velocity is 0.5 [ms−1]. Based
on this value, the numerical mesh is constructed. Fig. 2 shows the size
of overall computational domain.Where D denotes the diameter of
rotor. It is noted that the sliding mesh is mainly used in the numerical
computation. On the other hand, the Multiple Reference Frame (MRF)

448
K. Yahagi, K. Takagi Ocean Engineering 172 (2019) 446–455

0.45 0.40
0.40
0.35
0.35
0.30 0.30
0.25
Cp

0.20 0.25
CFD -2 deg. (MRF)
0.15 CFD 0 deg. (MRF)

CMy
0.20 CFD(TSR7.2)
0.10 CFD -2 deg. (Sliding Mesh)
Experiment -2 deg. Experiment(TSR7.2)
0.05 0.15
Experiment 0 deg.
0.00
0.10
3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 10.0 11.0 12.0
TSR
0.05
(a) Cp
0.00
1.20 0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0
1.00 TIme[s]

0.80
(a) Time history
0.60
Ct

CFD -2 deg. (MRF) 0.003

0.40 CFD 0 deg. (MRF) CFD
CFD -2deg. (Sliding Mesh)
0.20 Experiment -2 deg. Experiment
CMy Periodogram [(N*m)2]/Hz

Experiment 0 deg. 0.002

0.00
3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 10.0 11.0 12.0
TSR 0.002
(b) Ct
Fig. 9. Measured and computed results of (a) Cp and (b) Ct in the uniform flow. 0.001
Blade pitch angles are −2 and 0°.

model is used only for the uniform flow case and compared with the
result of the sliding mesh computation. Fig. 3 shows the detail of
meshing near the blade. Height of the wall cell is set to be smaller than
y+ = 1. The time step is determined so that each time step corresponds
to 1 degree of the turbine rotation. Total number of the mesh is
4,801,511 for the following calculations. In order to verify the con-
vergence of results, a finer mesh calculation has also performed with
12,133,638 meshes. The difference of the power coefficient is 0.88%
and 0.1% for the thrust coefficient. Thus, we assumed that the nu-
merical results are converged with 4,801,511 meshes.
It is noted that a linear variation in z-direction is used for a math-
ematical model of the shear flow at the inlet boundary in the shear flow
computation. The coefficient of the linear equation is determined based
on the measurement of shear flow in the circulating tank as
u= 0.416 + 0.045z [ms−1](5)
3. Experiment
3.1. Experimental set up
Principal dimensions of the turbine is shown in Fig. 4. The shape
and twisting angle are chosen so that the blade shape is represented by
simple equations for the convenience of generating the numerical mesh
as mentioned above. The diameter is chosen to guarantee the accuracy
of the moment measurement. As a result, a free surface effect is ob-
served that will be explained later. The rotation of the turbine rotor is
controlled to keep the constant rate from TSR = 5 to 14. The blade
0.001
0.000
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0
Frequency [Hz]
(b) Periodogram
Fig. 10. An example of measured My in the circulating water channel for the
blade pitch angle of −2°. (a) Time history and (b) Periodogram of the time
history.
moments are measured by a moment load sensor which is located at the
root of one blade. The experimental turbine rotor has a boss of 0.12m
diameter and a sensor and a dummy sensor are fixed at both sides of the
boss, while the numerical model ignores the boss and the censors. The
thrust and moment of the turbine are also measured to check the power
coefficient Cp and the thrust coefficient Ct.
Xia and Takagi (Xia and Takagi, 2016) created a shear flow in the
circulating water channel using screens. The screen is a lattice of 15
horizontal bars with diameter of 0.0272m and the bars are extended to
the channel wall. The same screen is used for creating a shear flow in
the circulating water channel. Fig. 5 shows the experimental arrange-
ment of screens, velocity meters, and the turbine. The test section of the
circulating water channel has dimensions of 4.9m (length) x 2.0m
(width) x 1.2m (water depth). Three screens are used to create a shear
flow with 10% gradient. An electro-magnetic velocity meter is installed

449
K. Yahagi, K. Takagi Ocean Engineering 172 (2019) 446–455

0.45 0.045
0.040 CFD
0.40
Experiment
0.35 0.035

CMx average
0.30 0.030
0.25 0.025
Cp

0.20 0.020
0.015
0.15 CFD Uniform Flow
0.010
0.10 CFD Shear Flow
Exp Uniform Flow 0.005
0.05
Exp Shear Flow 0.000
0.00 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 10.0 11.0 12.0 13.0 14.0
3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 10.0 11.0 12.0 TSR
TSR
(a) Cp (a) Mx

1.20 0.45
0.40
1.00 0.35

CMy average
0.30
0.80
0.25
0.60 0.20
Ct

CFD Uniform Flow 0.15

0.40 CFD Shear Flow 0.10 CFD
Exp Uniform Flow 0.05 Experiment
0.20
Exp Shear Flow 0.00
0.00 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 10.0 11.0 12.0 13.0 14.0
3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 10.0 11.0 12.0 TSR
TSR (b) My
(b) Ct Fig. 12. Comparison between experimental results and computational results
on the time average of Mx and My in the shear flow for the blade pitch angle of
Fig. 11. Measured and computed results of (a) Cp and (b) Ct in the uniform
−2°.
flow and in the sea flow. Blade pitch angle is −2°.

at the center line of the channel to measure the reference inflow velo-
city and another one is installed 0.35m off-center. Both meters are lo-
cated 0.6m in front of the turbine.
A measurement of vertical profile of the flow was conducted before
installing the turbine. Fig. 6 shows the measured vertical profile of
shear flow where the velocity is averaged in time. Although the vertical
profile is not perfectly straight, the screens induce a linear shear flow
with the gradient of 10.8%. We also measured the turbulence intensity,
and it is found that the turbulence intensity for the shear flow is 4–5%
while it is less than 2% for the uniform flow.
3.2. Blockage effects
other hand, the free surface effect is more serious for the magnitude of
fluctuations in the shear flow, because the amplitude of periodic fluc-
tuation appearing in Fig. 7 has almost the same order as the fluctuation
in the shear flow. Thus, the fluctuations of Mx and My in the shear flow
are corrected by subtracting the fluctuation appeared in uniform flow.
Fig. 8 shows comparisons of time averaged (a) Mx and (b) My
measured in the circulating water channel and in the ocean engineering
basin. Apparent blockage effect is observed. The measured value in the
circulating tank is corrected using two values as the blockage effect
correction. In addition to this, the free surface correction is made for the
fluctuated part of the measured value in the shear flow as mentioned
previously. The same blockage correction is made for Cp and Ct.

Since the width of the test section is only 2.0m, a blockage effect is
expected. Thus, the same experiment is conducted in the ocean en-
gineering basin of the University of Tokyo. The basin has dimensions of
50m (length) x 10m (width) x 5m (water depth). We used the same
experimental set up, while the turbine was towed by a towing carriage.
It is mentioned that, even in the ocean engineering tank, the free
surface effect cannot be removed, though it is supposed to be smaller
than the wall effect. Fig. 7 shows an example of time history of My
which has a periodic fluctuation. It has the same period as the rotation
of the turbine, and it is supposed to be a free surface effect. The am-
plitude of fluctuation is 2.5% of the average value. Therefore, the
average value is supposed to have an inaccuracy of the same order due
to the miller effect of the free surface. However, this inaccuracy is ig-
nored in our experimental results since the inaccuracy is small. On the
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Comparison of the CFD with the experiment
In order to verify the numerical procedure, comparisons of Cp and
Ct are performed. Fig. 9 shows the numerical results and the measured
results of Cp and Ct. The numerical computations for the pitch angle of
−2° are performed both by the MRF model and the sliding mesh model.
The MRF results are almost identical to the sliding mesh results, and the
MRF computation and the sliding mesh computation both show a fairly
good agreement with experimental results. Thus, we concluded that the
numerical procedure is appropriate, and the numerical results have
enough accuracy for the further discussion, though the experimental
value could have small errors due to the free surface effect as

450
K. Yahagi, K. Takagi
0.010
CFD
0.008 Experiment
CMx amplitude
0.006
0.004
0.002
0.000
4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 10.0 11.0 12.0 13.0 14.0
TSR
(a) Mx
0.020
CFD
Experiment
0.015
CMy amplitude
0.010
0.005
0.000
4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 10.0 11.0 12.0 13.0 14.0
TSR
(b) My
Fig. 13. Comparison between experimental results and computational results
on the amplitude of the first harmonic component in the time history of Mx and
My in the shear flow for the blade pitch angle of −2°.
mentioned above. We also confirmed that the MRF model gives good
approximation for Cp and Ct and saves the computational time, though
the model is mathematically not correct for the transient problem. It is
mentioned that from here on out we discuss on the case of blade pitch
angle of −2°, since Ct is larger than the case of 0°.
Fig. 10-(a) shows an example of time history of My in the shear
flow. Since the turbulent intensity of the inflow is about 4%, high fre-
quency fluctuations are observed in the experimental time history.
However, an apparent periodic variation is recognized and its fre-
quency is equal to the rate of turbine rotation. On the contrary, the CFD
result shows an apparent periodicity, since the inflow of the CFD does
not have a turbulent component.
In order to clarify this frequency, we obtained a periodogram of the
time history which is shown in Fig. 10-(b). A sharp peek is appearing
both for the experiment and the CFD at the frequency of 1.06 Hz which
is equal to the rotation rate 1.06 rps of the turbine. Another small peak
is also observed in the experiment at the frequency of 2.12 Hz which is
supposed to be the second harmonic, while the CFD result has no
second peek. It is concluded from these results that the first harmonic
component of the Fourier series expansion is useful for the discussion
on the fluctuations of the load acting on the blade, though the inflow
contains a turbulent component and its influence is observed in the time
history.
Fig. 11 shows measured and computed results of Cp and Ct in the
uniform flow and in the shear flow, where the sliding mesh is used for
the computation. Since the generated shear in the circulating water
channel is not strong, the difference between the uniform-flow case and
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Ocean Engineering 172 (2019) 446–455
0.0
-10.0
-20.0
CMx phase
-30.0
-40.0
-50.0
CFD
-60.0 Experiment
-70.0
4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 10.0 11.0 12.0 13.0 14.0
TSR
(a) Mx
0.0
-10.0
-20.0
CMy phase
-30.0
-40.0
-50.0
-60.0 CFD
Experiment
-70.0
4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 10.0 11.0 12.0 13.0 14.0
TSR
(b) My
Fig. 14. Comparison between experimental results and computational results
on the phase of the first harmonic component in the time history of Mx and My
in the shear flow for the blade pitch angle of −2°.
the shear-flow case is not apparent, though the forces in the shear flow
is theoretically expected to be larger than it in the uniform flow. On the
contrary, the CFD shows that Ct in the shear flow is slightly larger than
it in the uniform flow, though this tendency is not clear in the case of
large TSR. This tendency is not simple for Cp, since the shear flow case
is larger only in the middle TSR. Thus, it is concluded that the influence
of the shear flow is small if the shear is not strong, and the tendency
depends on TSR. A large shear case will be shown and discussed in the
next subsection as an example of the CFD application.
Fig. 12 shows a comparison between experimental results and
computational results on the time average of Mx and My, where the
sliding mesh is used for numerical computation to represent the shear
flow. The experimental results are corrected for blockage effects. The
agreement between the experiment and the CFD is the same as that of
Cp and Ct. However, the agreement for smaller TSR is not good.
Especially Mx at TSR = 5, the discrepancy between the CFD and the
experiment is big. The reason is supposed to be a separation of the flow
on the blade. The influence of the separation is discussed in the next
subsection.
Fig. 13 shows the amplitude of the first harmonic component of
fluctuation in the time history of (a) Mx and (b) My in the shear flow,
and the phase is shown in Fig. 14. Where, the amplitude and phase are
obtained as the first harmonic component of the Fourier expansion. The
amplitude and the phase are corrected for the blockage effect and the
free surface effect as mentioned above. It is apparent from these figures
that the CFD results are in fairly good agreement with experimental
K. Yahagi, K. Takagi Ocean Engineering 172 (2019) 446–455

0.450 0.40
Shear flow (40 )
0.35 Shear flow (10%)
0.425
Uniform flow
0.30
0.400 0.25

CMx
0.375 0.20
Cp

0.15
0.350
Shear flow (40%) 0.10
0.325 Shear flow (10%) 0.05
Uniform flow 0.00
0.300
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0
Time [s] Time [s]
(a) Mx
(a) Cp
0.40
1.00
Shear flow (40%)
0.35
0.98
Shear flow (10%) 0.30
0.95 Uniform flow 0.25
0.93

CMy
0.20
0.90
Ct

0.15
0.88
0.10 Shear flow (40%)
0.85 Shear flow (10%)
0.05
0.83 Uniform flow
0.00
0.80
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 Time [s]
Time [s]
(b) My
(b) Ct
Fig. 16. Time histories of (a) Mx and (b) My for the blade pitch angle of −2°
Fig. 15. Instantaneous value of (a) Cp and (b) Ct for the blade pitch angle of and TSR = 7 (Period of turbine rotation = 0.81 s) in the shear flow.
−2° and TSR = 7 (Period of turbine rotation = 0.81 s) in the shear flow.

results, though the agreement is worse than that of averaged value.
It is mentioned that the amplitude and the phase of Mx and My are
not stationary in the experiment as seen in the time history shown in
Fig. 10, since it is difficult to generate perfectly linear shear flow and
the inlet flow contains turbulent component. It is also noted that Mx is
more sensitive than My, since Mx is much smaller than My.
The phase lag appearing in the small TSR case is observed both in
the experiment and CFD. This is one of important characteristics of
unsteady wing theory, though the phase lag is small. From these results,
it is concluded that the CFD can predict the unsteady effects on the
turbine blades in the shear flow expect for the case of small TSR where
the separation is expected.
It is noted that, although the CFD is a powerful tool to estimate the
moment loads as mentioned above, it is too time consuming when we
calculate the unsteady problem. Thus, in the simulation of the overall
turbine system which includes the floating body and the mooring
system, BEM is convenient for the estimation of blade force and mo-
ment (Takagi, 2012). The present results are utilized for improving a
mathematical model which gives an unsteadiness correction to con-
ventional BEM (O'Rourke et al., 2015).
4.2. Application of the CFD
Although the shear gradient in the experiment is 10.8%, a more
severe gradient is reported in the measurement of the ocean current
(Kiyomatsu et al., 2014). Thus, a comparison between the small gra-
dient case (10%) and a large gradient case (40%) was carried out by the
CFD. Fig. 15 shows instantaneous value of the Cp and Ct, where the
period of turbine rotation is 0.81 s. Crests in the time history Cp cor-
respond to instants when the blade is vertical. On the contrary, valleys
correspond to the horizontal position. It is apparent that in the large
gradient case Cp has large fluctuations, while in the small gradient case
the fluctuations are small.
This tendency is explained by the attack angle of the local flow to
the blade section. When the blade is vertical, the shear effect is added to
the average inflow of the turbine. The additional inflow to the upper
blade is positive while that to the lower blade is negative. Since the
magnitude of the blade force is proportional to the square of the inflow
speed, the summation of upper and lower blade-forces is slightly larger
in the vertical position compared to the blade-force when the blade
takes a horizontal position. The difference of the blade-force between
the vertical position and the horizontal position is supposed to be
proportional to the square of magnitude of the additional-inflow velo-
city. Thus, the fluctuation of the blade-force would be very small, if the
attack angle of the flow does not change. However, the attack angle of
the flow changes linearly according to the variation of inflow speed. On
the other hand, if the attack angle increases Cp would increase and Ct
would decrease. As a result, instantaneous Cp has the large fluctuation,
while the fluctuation of Ct is small. This is the case for the large gra-
dient of shear.
When the gradient of shear is small, the same thing happens.
However, since the influence of attack angle variation due to the shear
is small compared to the attack angle without shear and the square of
the magnitude of additional inflow is small, the fluctuations on both Cp

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Table 2
Summary of amplitude for different TSRs in the shear flow.
TSR = 6

Cp amplitude Ct amplitude CMx amplitude CMy amplitude

Shear flow (10%) 0.0003 0.0002 0.0022 0.0092

Shear flow (40%) 0.0077 0.0017 0.0126 0.0499

TSR = 7

Cp amplitude Ct amplitude CMx amplitude CMy amplitude

Shear flow (10%) 0.0002 0.0001 0.0021 0.0100

Shear flow (40%) 0.0106 0.0020 0.0142 0.0656

Shear gradient 10% Shear gradient 40% Uniform flow

0.60

0.45

0.30

0.15

0.00

Upper Lower Upper Lower Upper Lower

(a) TSR=5.0

Shear gradient 10% Shear gradient 40% Uniform flow

0.60

0.45

0.30

0.15

0.00

Upper Lower Upper Lower Upper Lower

(b) TSR=7.0
Fig. 17. Streamlines on the blade for the cases of (a) TSR = 5.0 and (b) TSR = 7.0 in different shear gradients of the flow. Blades are in the vertical position.

and Ct are very small. This is a qualitative explanation of this phe- histories apparently have a periodic fluctuation whose period is as the
nomenon. But, the quantitative estimation is difficult without the CFD, same as the period of turbine rotation. It is mentioned that the ampli-
because the unsteady effect is supposed to be considered. tude is not proportional to the shear gradient, and the ratio between
Fig. 16 shows time histories of Mx and My in the shear flow. Time amplitude and shear gradient depends on the TSR. The reason is

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Skin friction coefficient

Shear gradient 10% Shear gradient 40% Uniform flow

Upper Lower Upper Lower Upper Lower

(a) TSR=5.0

Skin friction coefficient

Shear gradient 10% Shear gradient 40% Uniform flow

Upper Lower Upper Lower Upper Lower

(b) TSR=7.0
Fig. 18. Distribution of the shear stress on the blade for the cases of (a) TSR = 5.0 and (b) TSR = 7.0 in different shear gradients of the flow. Blades are in the vertical
position.

supposed to be the same as the cases of Cp and Ct. However, since the
influence of unsteadiness exists, again the quantitative estimation is
difficult without the CFD. Table 2 shows a summary of amplitude for
different TSRs. It seems that the larger gradient case experiences more
sever fluctuations of the load than a linearly expected value from the
10% case. This is important information for the fatigue design of the
blade.
One of advantages of the CFD is that we can observe the detail of
flow directly from visualized numerical results. Thus, two examples are
shown here. The fist example is relevant to the separation of the flow on
the blade which was mentioned in subsection 4.1. Figs. 12–14 show
that the agreement between the CFD and the experiment is not good
when TSR is small (TSR = 5.0), while the agreement is fairly good in
the case of higher TSR. Since the local attack angle of the blade is large
when TSR is small, it suggests that the separation on the blade happens.
Fig. 19. Contour plot of magnitude of vorticity distribution on the center ver- Fig. 17 shows stream lines on the blade in the cases of (a) TSR = 5.0
tical plane for the 40% gradient, blade pitch angle = −2° and TSR = 7.

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K. Yahagi, K. Takagi
and (b) TSR = 7.0. Since the Cp, which represents the efficiency of the
turbine, is high in the case of TSR = 7, this case is considered to re-
present the normal operation-condition, while the case of TSR = 5.0
represents the torque-rich condition, i.e. low TSR. In the uniform flow,
Fig. 17 shows that there are streamlines toward spanwise direction near
the tip of the blade when TSR = 5.0. These stream lines suggest the
flow separation for the case of low TSR. On the contrary, when TSR is
high, streamlines toward the spanwise direction are not observed. This
is confirmed in Fig. 18 which shows distributions of the skin friction
coefficient. The skin friction coefficient is defined as
w
1
U2
2 (6)
where, w denotes the shear stress.
It is apparent in Fig. 18 that the distribution of skin friction in
uniform flow is not smooth when TSR is low, while it is smooth when
TSR is high. These tendencies are basically the same in the cases of
small and large shear gradient cases. However, when the shear gradient
is large, directions of streamline are different from those in the case of
uniform flow. The reason is supposed to be the unsteadiness of the flow,
since the two-dimensional unsteady wing theory suggests that the se-
paration does not happen even for the large attack angle if the flow is
unsteady. But, the detail of flow is difficult to expect without the CFD.
Although we do not give examples of three-dimensional visualization, it
may be more informative.
Another example is the wake flow behind the turbine which is very
important for the design of the farm, since the wake affects the inflow of
the turbine behind the front turbines. In addition, in the case of floating
type ocean current turbine, the wake affects not only the efficiency but
also the motion of floating devices in the second row.
Fig. 19 shows a contour plot of magnitude of vorticity distribution on
the center vertical plane in the shear flow. It is noted that the inflow
passes through the center of the turbine, since the boss is ignored in the
CFD computation. It is apparent that the wake after the turbine is not
symmetry. The reason is supposed to be that the downwash induced by
spiral trailing vortices is not uniform in a cylindrical region behind the
turbine. Stronger trailing vortex at the upper half decelerate the fluid
quicker than that in the lower half. As a result, the vertical velocity is
induced. This effect might be important for the design of a turbine array.
5. Conclusions
We focus on the shear flow effect on an ocean current turbine. The
periodic fluctuation of moment loads at a blade root induced by the
shear flow is highlighted because the bending moment is one of im-
portant parameters for the structural design of the blade. Experiments
in a circulating water channel and a towing tank were conducted, and
numerical estimations of the blade loads were also carried out by a
commercial CFD code and compared with the experimental results.
A linear shear flow was created in the circulating water channel
with three screens, and moment loads at the root of one blade was
successfully measured in this shear flow. The blockage effect and in-
fluence of the free surface was removed from the measured data by
utilizing experimental results obtained in the ocean engineering basin.
ANSYS fluent was used for the computation and the numerical results
were compared with the experiment.
The meshing, size of computational domain, and the turbulence
model are verified through the comparisons between the numerical
result and the experiment for the power coefficient and the thrust
coefficient in uniform flow. The numerical results of moment load in
the shear flow are validated through the comparison with the experi-
mental results of Mx and My. It is concluded that the time averaged
values of Mx and My are estimated by the present CFD method very
well, and the amplitude and phase of the periodic fluctuation of the
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Ocean Engineering 172 (2019) 446–455
moment load are estimated with sufficient accuracy, though the
agreement between the CFD and the experiment is worse than that of
time averaged value. When TSR is small, the agreement between the
CFD and the experiment on Mx and My is not good, the reason con-
sidered to be a separation happening on the blade. Flow visualizations
of the CFD result confirm detail of the separation.
Using the same CFD method, moment loads on a blade in the shear
flow of 40% gradient were computed. It is found that the larger gra-
dient case produces more severe fluctuations of the load than a linearly
expected value, and the wake behind the turbine is not symmetric.
These phenomena might be useful for the blade design as well as the
design of a turbine array.
Acknowledgements
This work is funded by the New Energy and Industrial Technology
Development Organization, Japan (NEDO). The authors are grateful for
their support. The authors are also appreciated Akishima Laboratory
Inc. for their support to the experiment in the circulating water channel.
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