Vers une caractérisation réaliste des conditions de fonctionnement des hydroliennes

This paper presents experimental results of tests carried out in order to investigate the hydrodynamics of marine current turbines and to build an experimental database used to validate the numerical developments conducted to characterize the flow perturbations induced by marine current turbines. For that purpose, we used a tri-bladed horizontal axis turbine. Particular attention is paid to the flow characteristic effects (velocity gradient, flow orientation, flow turbulence intensity level) on the performance of a 0.70 m diameter turbine. The main interest is to study how the far wake decays downstream, in order to estimate the effect produced in downstream turbines. Analyses are made from Laser Doppler Velocimeter measurements (velocity and turbulence intensity maps). Combined effects of waves and current are also studied and the developments of the numerical work carried out to simulate the behaviour of this kind of structure are presented.