Turning Water Abundance Into Sustainability in Brazil

Brazil is a powerhouse in terms of water resources, which are instrumental to the country’s transition to sustainability. However, to realize this potential, substantial management and conservation hurdles must first be overcome. We propose a novel strategy for the use, management, and conservation of Brazilian water resources. Our approach recognizes the spatial heterogeneity of water abundance and is based on a multisectoral perspective, including energy, food, sanitation, and environmental conservation. The main recommendations are to adopt low-cost local and subnational solutions and to design policy mixes, both based on the logic of the nexus water-food-energy-ecosystem. We offer as examples programs that 1) increase cistern infrastructure in drylands, 2) use constructed wetlands to improve sewage treatment in small cities and vulnerable areas, 3) turn the focus of conservation to aquatic ecosystems, 4) stimulate the adoption of small hydrokinetic turbines for energy generation in sparsely populated river-abundant regions, such as the Amazon Region, 5) diversify the matrix of renewable energy sources by combining hydropower with biomass and wind energy generation, and 6) mixes policies by integrating multiple sectors to improve regulation, use and management of water resources, such as the Brazilian “Water for All” Program. By following these recommendations, Brazil would align itself with the goals established in international agreements and would turn its abundance of water resources into development opportunities.

An Adjoint Optimization Prediction Method for Partially Cavitating Hydrofoils

Much work has been done over the past years to obtain a better understanding, predict and alleviate the effects of cavitation on the performance of lifting surfaces for hydrokinetic turbines and marine propellers. Lifting-surface sheet cavitation, when addressed as a free-streamline problem, can be predicted up to a desirable degree of accuracy using numerical methods under the assumptions of ideal flow. Typically, a potential solver is used in conjunction with geometric criteria to determine the cavity shape, while an iterative scheme ensures that all boundary conditions are satisfied. In this work, we propose a new prediction model for the case of partially cavitating hydrofoils in a steady flow that treats the free-streamline problem as an inverse problem. The objective function is based on the assumption that on the cavity boundary, the pressure remains constant and is evaluated at each optimization cycle using a source-vorticity BEM solver. The attached cavity is parametrized using B-splines, and the control points are included in the design variables along with the cavitation number. The sensitivities required for the gradient-based optimization are derived using the continuous adjoint method. The proposed numerical scheme is compared against other methods for the NACA 16-series hydrofoils and is found to predict well both the cavity shape and cavitation number for a given cavity length.

Performance evaluation of high-lift hydrofoils with a flap used in the design of horizontal-axis hydrokinetic turbines

The hydrodynamic performance and the flow field of two horizontal-axis hydrokinetic turbines with and without a high-lift hydrofoil with a flap were investigated using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. For improving the accuracy of the numerical simulation, the user-defined function (UDF) of 6-degrees of freedom (6-DoF) was used in the Ansys Fluent software. Unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) equations coupled to the SST 𝑘 − 𝜔 turbulence model were employed during the simulation. A three-dimensional model of both of the turbines with three blades was conducted for obtaining the performance curve of the power coefficient (𝐶𝑃) versus the tip speed ratio (TSR). The maximum power coefficients (𝐶𝑃𝑀𝑎𝑥) of the hydrokinetic turbines with and without a high-lift hydrofoil arrangement were 0.5050 and 0.419, respectively. Experimental data from the literature were used for the validation of the numerical results, specifically for the case when a rotor with traditional blades is utilized. In general, the simulation results were in good agreement with the experimental data.

Aerodynamic Analysis and Design of High-Performance Sails

High-performance sails, such as the ones used on the America Cup boats, require sails whose aerodynamic characteristics approach those of rigid wings, yet permit a reduction in sail area in high wind and sea conditions. To this end, two-cloth sails are coming into use. These sails are constructed out of an articulated forebody that is a truncated ellipse, the aft of which has sail tracks, or rollers, along the edges to accommodate the twin sails. As the sails on either side need to be of the same length, due to the requirement to sail on different tacks, the two cloth sections need to be of equal length. The requirement then is to have their clews separated and able to slide over each other. More importantly, the transition between the rigid mast section and sails needs to be as aerodynamically smooth as possible in order to reduce drag and hence maximize the lift to drag ratio of the airfoil section that is made up of the mast and twin sails. A computational analysis using ANSYS CFX is presented in this chapter which shows that the aerodynamic characteristics of this type of two-cloth sail are almost as good as those of two-element rigid wing sections. Optimum sail trim configurations are analyzed in order to maximize the thrust production. Applications may soon extend beyond competitive sailing purposes for use on sailing ships equipped with hydrokinetic turbines to produce hydrogen via electrolysis (energy ships). Additionally, high performance sails can be used onboard cargo ships to reduce overall fuel consumption.

Performance Analysis of Multi-Sectional Cycloidal Hydrokinetic Turbines

Hydrokinetic power is the most efficient and reliable source of renewable energy and it has been utilized to produce power for centuries. The cycloidal water turbine is a subset of the H-bar type Darrieus turbines that are designed to actively controls the pitch angle of blades to improve turbine efficiency. However, the traditional cycloidal turbine has some shortcomings. For example, the torque and power coefficient vary significantly as the turbine rotates, which means the produced power is not uniform in one revolution. The associated hydrodynamic load will lead to fatigue of the turbine structure that will shorten the turbine lifespan. To solve this problem, a concept of the multi-sectional cycloidal water turbine is proposed. In the present study, computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations are applied to investigate the performance of the multi-sectional cycloidal turbine. A cycloidal turbine with three identical sections is designed. Each section consists of three blades and NACA0021 is chosen as the hydrofoil. Structured mesh with sliding interfaces is generated and arbitrary Mesh Interface (AMI) technique is employed. Unsteady RANS simulations with SST k–ω model are conducted to compute the flow field and torque generated by the turbine, and then power coefficient is computed. The results demonstrates that the three-section turbine has uniform performance in one revolution. At the design condition, the power coefficients of the one-section turbine and the three-section turbine are similar; when the TSR is much larger or less than the desired value, the three-section turbine has better performance.

Observation and Discussion of Leading Edge Vortex Shedding From Laboratory-Scaled Cross-Flow Hydrokinetic Turbines in Counter-Rotating Configurations

In 2011, John Dabiri proposed the use of counter-rotating vertical-axis wind turbines to achieve enhanced power output per unit area of a wind farm. Since then, various studies in the wind energy and marine hydrokinetic (MHK) literature have been dedicated to pairs of vertical axis turbines in both co-rotating and counter-rotating configurations, in terms of their power production, wake characterization, and optimal array design. Previous experimental works suggest an enhancement of up to 27.9% in the system power coefficient of pair configurations compared to a single turbine. Additionally, previous numerical studies have indicated that the increased power output is correlated with higher torque on the turbine blades which correspondingly produces a stronger leading edge vortex. This paper presents an extended investigation into a pair of laboratory scaled cross-flow hydrokinetic turbines in counter-rotating configurations. Experiments were conducted to observe, compare, and discuss the leading edge vortex shedding from the turbine blades during their positive torque phase. The turbines operated in a small water flume at the diameter-based Reynolds number of 22,000 with a 0.316 m/s freestream velocity and 4% turbulent intensity. Using a monoscopic particle image velocimetry setup, multiple realizations of the water flow around each blade at their positive torque phase were recorded and phase-averaged. Results show consistent leading vortex shedding at these turbine angles while a correlation between the turbine power performance and the vortex size and strength was observed.