The west and south coastal region of Korea has very strong tidal current speeds and therefore accommodates many suitable sites for the application of Tidal Current Power.
This paper deals with effect that design parameter of tidal current vertical axis turbine to performance. For the analysis on VATT(Vertical-Axis Tidal current Turbine), the numerical approach was made by using the commercial CFD software FLUENT 6.3.
First at all, they ascertained that characteristic of turbine parameters such as span, turbine diameter, number of blade, shape of blade, tip speed ratio, solidity and current speed.
Second, this paper provided that effect of turbine diameter and current speed on the efficiency of VATT. And than, study on the effect of Reynolds number in turbine efficiency quite big especially at low Reynolds number below.
Third, the paper deal with any blockages such as duct or flow fence around the turbine. turbine performance has benefit by a blockage effect.
Fourth, present paper has proposed optimal solidity for VATT.