Impact of the blockage ratio on the transport of sediment in the presence of a hydrokinetic turbine: Numerical modeling of the interaction sediment and turbine

Fatima Khaled (1, 2) , Sylvain Guillou (1) , Yann Méar (1, 3) , Ferhat Hadri (2)

1 LUSAC - Laboratoire Universitaire des Sciences Appliquées de Cherbourg
2 LISV - Laboratoire d'Ingénierie des Systèmes de Versailles
3 INTECHMER - Institut national des sciences et techniques de la mer

Interactions between hydrokinetic turbines and near scale and far scale bed sediment particles are considered a critical area of assessment; however, a limited number of research studies have been published to address this issue. The current paper explores the influence of the blockage ratio on the morphology evolution downstream from a hydrokinetic turbine. A modeling framework is derived to predict the significant transport induced by a turbine installed on the erodible fluvial sandy bed surface, such as the Eulerian multi-phase model for the sediment and the Blade Element Momentum Theory (BEMT) for the turbine, using the open source platform OpenFOAM. Two configurations of different blockage ratios are considered. The configurations show differences in the bed morphology and the sediment transport. It has been shown for both configurations that the scour capabilities are enhanced below the turbine due to the acceleration of the flow and increasing local shear stress on the sediment.

Mots clés: Environmental impact; Blockage effects; Euler-Euler multiphase; Hydrokinetic turbine; Numerical simulations; OpenFOAM

Domaines: Planète et Univers [physics]

Fatima Khaled, Sylvain Guillou, Yann Méar, Ferhat Hadri. Impact of the blockage ratio on the transport of sediment in the presence of a hydrokinetic turbine: Numerical modeling of the interaction sediment and turbine. International Journal of Sediment Research, 2021, 36 (6), pp.696-710. ⟨10.1016/j.ijsrc.2021.02.003⟩. ⟨hal-03732486⟩