Novel energy coefficient used to predict efflux velocity of tidal current turbines

The efflux velocity is the basis for the prediction of turbine wake. A novel energy coefficient is defined to propose a new theoretical equation to predict the efflux velocity of tidal current turbine in this paper. Several CFD cases with different tip speed ratio and solidity is conducted using the DES-SA model. In order to overcome the limitations of the axial momentum theory, the effects of tip speed ratio and solidity on the efflux velocity are studied and the energy coefficients with different tip speed ratio and solidity are determined using the proposed equation based on the CFD results. Several semi-empirical efflux velocity equations are finally proposed by fitting the equation of the energy coefficient with tip speed ratio. The application of these equations in the prediction of wake flow and the power calculation of tidal turbine are also introduced in this paper.