Darrieus type vertical axis water turbine in a cylindrical shape which consists of some straight blades is simple, efficient and easy to install a generator upward. However, it has difficulty in starting revolution. As a method to cope with such a problem, a starting revolution assist mechanism was fabricated and set on a prototype of the turbine. Assist experiment was carried out. It resulted helping well the starting revolution. The improved prototype of tidal stream turbine can generate 1.4 W under a water flow of 1 m/s where impossible to self-start. Besides that, Darrieus water turbine’s generating torque property was investigated by the famous original experimental data of lift coefficient Cl and drag coefficient Cd for straight blades of NACA63 3-018 cross section. It was found that setting two or four blades in a turbine would help to improve the difficulty of starting revolution.
Numerical investigation of a tidal stream turbine using two methods of the Multiple Reference Frame and the Actuator Disk Momentum
