Water Current Load on Arrays of Rectangular Plates

Water current interaction with arrays of plates is studied by use of the computational fluid dynamics focusing on hydrokinetic energy production applications. Various configurations of arrays of equidistant rectangular plates are considered. The velocity and the pressure fields around an array of plates are determined, and the forces on individual plates are computed and compared with the empirical relations. It is found that the current-induced force on the leading plate in the array is substantially different from those on the downstream plates, which may experience negative forces, due to the change of the flow field. In three parametric studies, the effect of plate spacing, the number of plates, and the relative water depth on the current-induced forces is investigated. It is shown that the relative size of the plates and the number of plates in an array play a significant role on the current-induced loads. Finally, the relative direction of the plates and the incoming flow is changed, and its effect on the hydrodynamic forces on the plates is studied in a three-dimensional computational tank. The current loads on an oriented set of plates is shown to be remarkably different, when compared with those perpendicular to the current direction. It is concluded that the current-induced loads on an array of plates cannot be estimated by empirical relations, and specific computations, similar to those shown here, or laboratory experiments are required to investigate the current loads.