Turbine Wake Characterization

Turbine wake characterization is a key endeavour to the development of in-stream tidal turbine arrays.  In a sense, a turbine’s footprint includes its wake, wherein flow speeds are less and turbulence is elevated compared to the ambient surroundings.  It is thus desired to not just delineate wake boundaries but to determine a range of wake characteristics towards establishing maps of velocity deficit and turbulence intensity within the wakes. In this study, a wake characterization was completed using (2018) data collected from bottom-mounted acoustic Doppler current profiler (BM-ADCPs) downstream of the Open Hydro turbine.  The study addressed the following questions:

1. When did the turbine stop spinning?
2. What are the characteristics of the wake when the turbine was functional compared to control conditions?
3. What are the characteristics of the wake when the turbine was stalled compared to when it was functional?
4. How suitable was the BMADCP deployment location and configuration?