Research on the Blade Motion of a Bidirectional Energy-Generating Turbine under Integrated Wave and Tidal Current Action

An integrated wave-tidal current power turbine is affected by both wave and tidal current forces, and its energy efficiency is closely related to the velocity and direction of the two forces. To improve the probability of the horizontal axis turbine reaching maximum energy efficiency under real-time changing sea conditions, we performed the following investigations in this study. Based on the actual application scenario of Lianyungang port, a time series prediction model of tidal current (velocity and flow direction) and wave (mean wave direction, mean wave period, and significant wave height) data for the past year was established. The changes in waves and tidal currents within 24 h after the cutoff point of the existing data were predicted. The integrated wave-tidal current mechanism was studied, and the superposition of wave energy and tidal current energy was transformed into the equivalent velocity vector of wave-tidal current integration. The conversion coefficient between waves and equivalent flows was determined by a numerical wave flume simulation. According to the historical wave and tidal current data, the equivalent velocity range of the integrated action of waves and tidal currents in Lianyungang was determined. The influence of different blade motions on the energy harvesting efficiency of the turbine under the corresponding flow conditions was studied using the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method to determine the blade motion law of the turbine. The blade motion law of the prototype was verified in a sea trial experiment. The experimental results were basically consistent with the simulation results for the blade motion law designed according to the wave and tidal current prediction law. This design scheme can provide a reference for engineering design for the development and utilization of new marine energy.

Insight of Numerical Simulation for Current Circulation on the Steep Slopes of Bathymetry and Topography in Palu Bay, Indonesia

The steep slope of the bathymetry and topography that surrounds Palu Bay is a unique morphology of the area that affects the currents. A simulation was carried out in three regions with seven scenarios to understand the effect of wind, tide, and discharge on currents. The results showed that the average current pattern in Palu Bay is more dominantly influenced by tides at the open boundary and in the middle of the bay, steered by wind directions. The velocity decreases when it reaches the end of the bay and eventually reverses back to the mouth of the bay through both sides of the bay. The current in the Palu River estuary with a discharge of 36 m3/s moves out of the river mouth. On the other hand, results with a discharge of 2 m3/s revealed that the tidal current in the middle layer to the lower layer moves in the opposite direction to the current generated by the discharge in the layer above. It means that the tidal current velocity is lower than that generated by the river discharge. The computation revealed a good agreement with observed current velocity at the selected observation points.

Synchronized high-resolution bed-level change and biophysical data from 10 marsh–mudflat sites in northwestern Europe

Tidal flats provide valuable ecosystem services such as flood protection and carbon sequestration. Erosion and accretion processes govern the ecogeomorphic evolution of intertidal ecosystems (marshes and bare flats) and, hence, substantially affect their valuable ecosystem services. To understand the intertidal ecosystem development, high-frequency bed-level change data are thus needed. However, such datasets are scarce due to the lack of suitable methods that do not involve excessive labour and/or costly instruments. By applying newly developed surface elevation dynamics (SED) sensors, we obtained unique high-resolution daily bed-level change datasets in the period 2013–2017 from 10 marsh–mudflat sites situated in the Netherlands, Belgium, and the United Kingdom in contrasting physical and biological settings. At each site, multiple sensors were deployed for 9–20 months to ensure sufficient spatial and temporal coverage of highly variable bed-level change processes. The bed-level change data are provided with synchronized hydrodynamic data, i.e. water level, wave height, tidal current velocity, medium sediment grain size (D50), and chlorophyll a level at four sites. This dataset has revealed diverse spatial morphodynamics patterns over daily to seasonal scales, which are valuable to theoretical and model development. On the daily scale, this dataset is particularly instructive, as it includes a number of storm events, the response to which can be detected in the bed-level change observations. Such data are rare but useful to study tidal flat response to highly energetic conditions. The dataset is available from 4TU.ResearchData (https://doi.org/10.4121/12693254.v4; Hu et al., 2020), which is expected to expand with additional SED sensor data from ongoing and planned surveys.

Hydro-Oceanographic and Bathymetric Survey in Tanjung Merah as a Basis for Modelling Coastal Spatial Plans of Bitung City

The purpose of this study was to examine the parameters of Hydro-Oceanography (Tidal and Tidal Currents) and Bathymetry (Sea Depth) in Tanjung Merah, Bitung City. The method used in this research is a field survey method. The survey was carried out at the research location, precisely in Tanjung Merah, Matuari District, Bitung City. Equipment such as GPS Fish Finder, Floater Current Meter, Tidal Pole and Boats are supporting devices in obtaining accurate data on tides, tidal currents, and bathymetry in the waters of Tanjung Merah. The results showed that the tidal current conditions at the study site with several variations in the depth of the tidal current velocity ranged from 0.2 – 0.3 cm/sec with the dominant direction of the current towards the south. While the tides using tidal harmonic analysis for 15 days of observation, the Formzal Index is 0.93 which means that the tides in this location are mixed type with a single daily trend. Bathymetric conditions in Tanjung Merah identified the topography of the bottom of the waters is steep with depth variations between 2 -30 meters along the coast of Tanjung Merah while shallow areas are found at the mouth of the Tanjung Merah river.

Comparative Investigations of Tidal Current Velocity Prediction Considering Effect of Multi-Layer Current Velocity

Accurate tidal current prediction plays a critical role with increasing utilization of tidal energy. The classical prediction approach of the tidal current velocity adopts the harmonic analysis (HA) method. The performance of the HA approach is not ideal to predict the high frequency components of tidal currents due to the lack of capability processing the non-astronomic factor. Recently, machine learning algorithms have been applied to process the non-astronomic factor in the prediction of tidal current. In this paper, a tidal current velocity prediction considering the effect of the multi-layer current velocity method is proposed. The proposed method adopts three machine learning algorithms to establish the prediction models for comparative investigations, namely long-short term memory (LSTM), back-propagation (BP) neural network, and the Elman regression network. In the case study, the tidal current data collected from the real ocean environment were used to validate the proposed method. The results show that the proposed method combined with the LSTM algorithm had higher accuracy than both the commercial tidal prediction tool (UTide) and the other two algorithms. This paper presents a novel tidal current velocity prediction considering the effect of the multi-layer current velocity method, which improves the accuracy of the power flow prediction and contributes to the research in the field of tidal current velocity prediction and the capture of tidal energy.

High resolution bed level change and synchronized biophysical data from 10 tidal flats in northwestern Europe

Tidal flats provide valuable ecosystem services such as flood protection and carbon sequestration. Erosion and accretion processes govern the eco-geomorphic evolution of intertidal ecosystems (marshes and bare flats), and hence substantially affect their valuable ecosystem services. To understand the intertidal ecosystem development, high-frequency bed-level change data are thus needed. However, such datasets are scarce due to the lack of suitable methods that do not involve excessive labour and/or instrument cost. By applying newly-developed Surface Elevation Dynamics sensors (SED-sensors), we obtained unique high-resolution daily bed-level change data sets in the period 2013–2017 from 10 salt marsh sites situated in the Netherlands, Belgium and Britain in contrasting physical and biological settings. At each site, multiple sensors were deployed for 9–20 months to ensure sufficient spatial and temporal coverage of highly variable bed level change processes. The bed level change data are provided with synchronized hydrodynamic data, i.e. water level, wave height, tidal current velocity, and medium grain size (D50) as well as (for some sites) chlorophyll-a level and organic matter content of the surface sediment. This dataset has revealed diverse spatial morphodynamic patterns over daily to seasonal scales, which are valuable to theoretical and model development. On the daily scale, this dataset is particularly instructive as it includes a number of storm events, the response to which can be detected in the bed level change observations. Such data are rare but useful to study tidal flat response to highly energetic conditions. The dataset is available from the 4TU.Centre for Research Data (https://doi.org/10.4121/uuid:4830dbc2-84b8-46f9-99a3- 90f01ab5b923, Hu et al., 2020), which is expected to expand with additional SED-sensor data from ongoing and planned surveys.

Evaluating the Potential for Tidal Phase Diversity to Produce Smoother Power Profiles

Although tidal energy conversion technologies are not yet commercially available or cost-competitive with other renewable energy technologies like wind turbines and solar panels, tides are a highly predictable resource. Tidal energy’s predictability indicates that the resource could introduce less volatility into balancing the electric grid when compared to other renewables, a fundamentally desirable attribute for the electric system. More specifically, tidal energy resources are unique in that they have the potential to produce relatively smoother power profiles over time through aggregation. In order to generate smooth power profiles from tidal resources, sufficient complexity within the timing of tides is necessary within electrical proximity. This study evaluates the concept of aggregating diverse tides for the purpose of reducing periods of no and low energy production and creating smoother power profiles in regions around Alaska and Washington by calculating cross-correlations of tidal current velocity time series. Ultimately, study results show limited potential to exploit the resources for this purpose and describe the institutional mechanisms necessary to realize the benefits in practice.