Experimental investigation of a Wells turbine under dynamic stall conditions for wave energy conversion

Marine energy still plays a marginal role in the current global energy scenario, despite the incessant effort by research for more than thirty years in the exploitation of the so-called blue energy. Among the wide range of marine technologies, wave energy harvesting can play a significant role in view of its potential and Oscillating Water Column (OWC) systems, coupled with Wells turbines, can be considered among the most mature wave energy technology. Due to the oscillating nature of the flow rate in this kind of applications, Wells turbines are affected by dynamic stall, which has significant effects in terms of performance, fatigue, noise and structural integrity of the turbine. Actually, during dynamic stall, the Wells turbine experiences evident high frequency torque fluctuations which overlay on the typical hysteresis loop, mainly during flow deceleration. The amplitudes of these fluctuations are damped as the flow rate decreases toward reattachment. Often these fluctuations are not evident because hysteresis loops are usually provided with phase-averaged data, which can significantly smoothen or even conceal them. Indeed, it is difficult to find in the literature high frequency torque measurements able to show these fluctuations. With the aim to better investigate how the stall triggers this phenomenon, a monoplane Wells turbine has been manufactured in 3D printing and tested in the open wind tunnel of the Polytechnic University of Bari, Italy. The interest of the experimental campaign has been mainly focused on the effects of main parameters of the oscillating inlet flow rate (mean flow rate, amplitude and period of the oscillations, modifying the controlling parameters of the inverter driving the squirrel cage blower) on the performance of the machine. The machine has been firstly investigated under steady state inlet flow conditions, then under dynamic stall conditions. As a result, unsteady torque fluctuations occur during the flow deceleration till the flow reattachment. After the stall, the investigated Wells turbine experiences a drastic reduction of the torque coefficient of about 90%. Moreover, the torque coefficient shows a number of peaks during deceleration phases ranging from 2 to 4. Specifically, the case with the maximum period of the flow rate under investigation (i.e., T = 20 s) shows a greater number of peaks (4) than those related to the other cases (3). Moreover, it has been found that this unsteady behavior is due neither to the mass flow rate crossing the turbine, nor to the stagnation pressure drop, nor to the rotational speed control, which is correctly performed keeping the rotational speed within 1% of the target value. Hence, detecting these oscillations can be relevant in the turbine design phase to enhance the structural strength of the turbine.