Kevin Mathews
Pronouns: He/Him
Research Mentor(s): Michael Bernitsas
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering / Engineering
Program:
Authors:
Session: Session 7: 4:40 pm – 5:30 pm
Poster: 100
Abstract
Renewable energy sources currently exhibit significant space and power inefficiency, with wind turbines, for instance, being over 10,000 times less space-efficient than burning gas/oil. The current state of hydrokinetic power also exhibits other major issues, one major issue being the detriment that they bring to the habitats they are placed in; on average, 22% of the fish that pass through traditional hydro turbines are killed. The VIVACE hydrokinetic generator aims to combat this by using a new form of renewable energy by harvesting the kinetic energy of river currents and tidal waves. To generate power, each generator has several vertical linearly-moving mechanisms (which will be referred to as cylinders for brevity) in close configuration. Currents cause the first cylinder to oscillate, which creates disturbances and also causes the following cylinders to oscillate, creating mechanical energy. Our project plans to further study the VIVACE mechanism and optimize its energy generation by modeling the system using computational fluid dynamics, then presenting the simulations analytically and comparing the data with real-life test cases to test the efficacy of different configurations of the mechanism. Our goal this semester was to look at the motion of two cylinders in synergy to determine the most energy-efficient velocity and spacing configuration, and why energy efficiency goes down when the flow rate hits 0.9 m/s by using CFD software. If these generators are optimized by cost and energy generation, they could spearhead a new era of renewable energy where power generation and space efficiency start catching up to nonrenewable sources of energy, making our planet a greener and safer place to live.
