Flapping foils as efficient hydrokinetic turbines : first steps in CFD modelling
Résumé
At a time of reframing the classic large scale energy production and networks, several devices have been designed to fully exploit the hydroelectric potential all around the world. One of those promising micro-hydro is the bio-inspired flapping foil harvester, based on the aeroelastic oscillations emerged from the fluid-structure interactions of an elastically mounted airfoil and a uniform fluid flow. With the aim of better understanding the dynamics of a fully- passive flapping foil turbine in low-speed water flows, a 2D model has been implemented and validated within open-source toolboxes. This model has been shown to be capable of reproducing accurately the self-sustained oscillations of the foil by means of a strongly coupled fluid-structure solver, thus being a solid basis for a numerical optimization of a lightweight flapping foil, leading the design of an experimental device to be tested soon.