Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year. (2017-2018 to 2019-2020)

Characterizing the time-dependent, three-dimensional shedding of wakes behind complex aerodynamic and hydrodynamic bodies is a great challenge at high Reynolds numbers (large industrial scales), and so in this research project a new scanning measurement process to extract this information over large volumes will be developed. Specifically, the hydrodynamic performance of a variety of pit-turbine bodies for hydropower are to be measured using time-resolved, stereoscopic Particle Image Velocimetry in an optical towing tank located at Queen's University. Here the model wakes will be reconstructed via a high-speed system laser system such that large physical volumes of the velocity field on the order of 30cm by 30cm by 3m can be obtained in one pass. All experiments will be kept as generalizations of the more complex geometries (without shrouding or the turbine itself) in order to understand more about the nature of this three-dimensional shedding as well as provide a general database to validate computational simulations, which can then be used later for the basis of optimization.x000D