Agenda
2022-10-13 2022-10-13

Conferencias y seminarios

Seminario "Turbulent flow mapping for tidal energy applications"

Informaciones

Fecha

Jueves 13 de octubre de 2022

Hora

14:30

Lugar

Sala B02 / Zoom

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Organiza

Área de Recursos Hídricos y Medio Ambiente

Seminario de Recursos Hídricos: “Turbulent flow mapping for tidal energy applications”

Expone

Maricarmen Guerra is an Assistant Professor at the Universidad de Concepción in the Civil Engineering department. Maricarmen studies the coastal environment hydrodynamics using innovative field methods and numerical modeling. She specializes in the study of currents, turbulence, and waves with application to various topics such as turbulent wakes, marine energy extraction, and floods.

  • Jueves 13 de Octubre 2022/ 14:30 hrs
  • Inglés

Abstract

The success of a tidal energy project requires an accurate description of the turbulent inflow conditions, and of the hydrodynamic impacts that energy extraction and turbine presence causes to the natural environment. However, most field surveys are spatially sparse and of limited duration because tidal turbines are installed in sites with strong currents (i.e. higher available power), where measurements are challenging and expensive. In this talk I will present novel field observations obtained for the spatial characterization of turbulent flows at promising hydrokinetic energy sites. Specifically, we have developed a drifter-based methodology to obtain spatial maps of flow velocity and turbulent quantities prior to and during the operation of full-scale hydrokinetic turbines. This method has been successfully applied under steady state flow in the Kvichak river (Alaska, USA) to measure the wake of ORPC RivGen turbine, and under unsteady tidal flow in Grand Passage (Nova Scotia, Canada), where Sustainable Marine Energy Canada operates a floating tidal turbine array. For each case study we captured the wake of the turbines, we observed the expected velocity deficit and increased turbulence downstream of the turbines, we evaluate the wake evolution and recovery, and quantify the total energy dissipated by turbulence within the wake.

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