Mathematical analysis of the turbine coefficient of performance for tidal stream turbines

Abstract

Unregulated water currents such as tides and ocean currents include energy that could be utilized for electricity production. These currents can be seen as dead bodies of water with potential energy, driven by gravity or alive moving with a kinetic energy (KE). Tidal stream turbines are a relatively new technology for extracting KE from tidal currents, which is currently in progress from development stage to industrial execution. One of the most important factors in tidal power analysis is the rotor efficiency coefficient or turbine coefficient of performance (λ). It depends on the rotor blade geometry and water velocity. This article presents a mathematical description of good interpolating functions which describe this coefficient analytically, for tidal stream turbines. Nonlinear curve-fitting solver in least-squares sense has been used in this study. Various interpolation functions have been proposed. The proposed mathematical descriptions can be very helpful for tidal power analysis and output power estimation.