GH Tidal Bladed - A design tool for tidal current turbines

In recent years the development of tidal current turbine technology has progressed rapidly to the point where prototype systems have been installed and are now operational. It seems clear that these developments represent the dawn of a new industry focussed on the exploitation of the huge, clean energy resource available from tidal stream currents.

GH Bladed has provided an excellent basis for the development of a tidal current turbine design tool. Not only was the software developed with all the quality assurance required of a certified design tool, but also many of the wind turbine related features and engineering models contained within the software could be directly applied or easily adapted to tidal current devices.

The development of the design tool for tidal current turbines involved the following stages:

• A requirements specification for the design tool was determined through consultation with the industry

• Appropriate engineering models were developed and implemented within the software

• Modification of the Graphical User Interface to include the facility to input parameters specific to tidal current turbines

The final stages of the development of the design tool will involve:

• Thorough in house testing of the software

• Beta testing by tidal current turbine developers

• Validation of the software against model and full scale test data

The work is being partially supported by the UK DTI New and Renewable Energy Programme.