Journal
RENEWABLE ENERGY
Volume 149, Issue -, Pages 828-860Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2019.12.076
Keywords
Alternating lift technologies; Adaptive damping; Flow-induced vibrations; Vortex-induced vibrations; Galloping; Distributed surface roughness
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [51609053]
- Natural Science Foundation of Heilongjiang Province [YQ2019E017]
- Vortex Hydro Energy, Inc. [DE-EE0006780]
- U.S. Department of Energy [DE-EE0006780]
- National Key Research and Development of China [YS2017YEGH000163]
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Alternating lift technology (ALT) harnesses hydrokinetic energy from currents and tides and is different from conventional steady lift technologies (turbines). ALT is still under development with an important research issue being the mitigation of wake effect on downstream cylinders in Flow Induced Oscillations (FIO) of multi-cylinder Current Energy Converters (CEC). Rather than adjust the configuration/parameters of the converter, a more direct and effective way is to actively adjust the harnessed power. In this paper, a hydrokinetic energy converter using FIO of two cylinders in tandem in one-degree-of-freedom oscillators, with nonlinear adaptive damping and linear spring stiffness, is tested experimentally. FIO include Vortex Induced Vibrations (VIV), galloping, and their coexistence. Introducing adaptive damping into the tandem cylinders overcomes the shielding effect, which previous research on two tandem cylinders has shown to reduce power output by the downstream cylinder. Shielding along with fixed damping result either in ceasing motion due to excessive damping, or in low harnessed energy due to insufficient damping. In this experimental study, damping-to-velocity rate, linear spring-stiffness, cylinder spacing, and flow-velocity are the parameters with Reynolds number 30,000 <= Re <= 120,000. Comparison to linear-oscillators in FIO shows that this nonlinear converter, with velocity-proportional damping coefficient, is more effective over the entire FIO range but especially in galloping, where both flow and cylinder speeds are higher. Experimental results for energy harvesting, efficiency and instantaneous energy of the converter are presented and discussed supported by amplitude and frequency response data. The results show that the nonlinear, adaptive, velocity-proportional damping coefficient is an effective way to increase the overall harnessed power and the power of downstream cylinder. The harnessed power in the VIV to galloping transition increases by up to 94%. The most significant improvement is in the galloping region, where the increase in harnessed power and efficiency is around 33%. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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