Of several types of variable air turbines for wave energy conversion investigated, a Wells turbine has been widely applied for wave energy conversion mainly due to its simple structured at 1990s. However the Wells Turbine has some inherent shortcomings
short operating range, not good self starting characteristics, higher axial thrust and noise. The impulse turbine has newly been proposed to overcome these drawbacks and have clarified that the turbine can be operated with higher turbine efficiency and lower rotational speed than those wells turbine.
This Paper deals with the performance analysis and design of impulse turbine for OWC-type wave energy plant. Numerical analysis is performed using a commercial software FLUENT.
First, this parametric study included variation of several important parameters such as the number and shape of blades, hub ratio, tip clearance and setting angle of guide vane.
Second, this paper has proposed special-type turbine more efficient so-called "Ring-type Turbine". The main idea of the proposed turbine rotor was to minimize the adverse effect of tip clearance of turbine blade. Results show that the efficiency increases up to 10% depending on flow coefficient.
Third, the present paper deal with the numerical study to analyze the self-starting performance in a reciprocating air flow generated by sinusoidal motion of wave inside oscillating water column(OWC). Results was compared to that of wells turbine, wells-known wave energy conversion device, and showed that the impulse turbine has a superior self-starting ability.
This paper deal with compare the performance of different turbine at scale-up level and under varying input conditions for analysis performance of prototype turbine.