Case Study 1: Acoustic monitoring campaign

In support of RealTide work package 2 activities, a team at the University of Edinburgh (UEDIN) have been working with Sabella during deployment and operation of the D10 tidal turbine.  The team aim to design systems to facilitate the capture of parameters contributing to the development of improved site/resource characterisation methods, measurement tools, and data processing as well as modelling including Computational Fluid Dynamics, Blade Element Momentum Theory, and tide-to-wire.

Sabella provided direct access to power and communications from spare connection points on the rear bulkhead of the turbine, giving UEDIN the ability to monitor and manage the instruments remotely.

The instruments shown in the figures will be deployed to satisfy the requirements as listed below:


Measurement campaign specification

RDI Workhorse (RDI600): Top-mount on the rear bulb of the D10 to collect at-turbine measurements of flow conditions, turbulence parameters and wave conditions.

Nortek Signature 500 (SIG500): Rear-mounted at axis height on the rear bulb of D10 to axial flow conditions and horizontal length scales and coherency data.

Converging Acoustic Doppler Profiler (C-ADP): On the rotor side of the fixed D10 on a heading from the TEC corresponding to the mean direction of incoming streamwise flow at a distance between 2D and 5D if this is possible given the deployment location of the Sabella ADCP FWD.  This will capture high resolution flow information.

SIG1000: Integrated with C-ADP structure. This instrument has a dual purpose, cross-validation of the C-ADP data, and high-resolution rotor plane parameters.

ADCP(FWD): To be installed on the rotor side forward of the D10 on a heading from the TEC corresponding to the mean direction of incoming streamwise flow at 3D upstream.  This represents the central location of the bounded area outlined in IEC TS 62600-200 power curve assessment.

ADCP(AFT): To be installed on the rear side of the D10 on a heading that corresponds to the mean direction of incoming streamwise flow (ebb tide) at 3D upstream.  This represents the central location of the bounded area outlined in IEC TS 62600-200[24] power curve assessment.

Data captured by the instruments will be stored in a database to be made accessible across the project with analysis forming part of future RealTide deliverables


Instrument integration with the Sabella D10 tidal turbine