An Investigation into Power from Pitch-Surge Point-Absorber Wave Energy Converters.

There is a worldwide opportunity for clean renewable power. The results from the UK Government's "Marine Energy Challenge" showed that marine energy has the potential to become competitive with other forms of energy. The key to success in this lies in a low lifetime-cost of power as delivered to the user. Pitch-surge point-absorber WECs have the potential to do this with average annual powers of around 2 MW in North Atlantic conditions from relatively small devices that would be economically competitive with other technologies and would be relatively easy to install and maintain. The paper examines the factors governing the performance of such devices and outlines their underlying theory Preliminary laboratory test results from a 1/100 scale pilot design are presented. It is hoped that more extensive development work will follow these promising early results. Engineering designs for devices based on these findings are outlined

Investigating pipeline and state of the art blood glucose biosensors to formulate next steps

Ten years on from a review in the twentieth issue of this journal, this contribution assess the direction research in the field of glucose sensing for diabetes is headed and various technologies to be seen in the future. The emphasis of this review was placed on the home blood glucose testing market. After an introduction to diabetes and glucose sensing, this review analyses state of the art and pipeline devices; in particular their user friendliness and technological advancement. This review complements conventional reviews based on scholarly published papers in journals

Ocean energy:the wave of the future

The power point presentation discussed the developing technology of ocean energy with design convergence on tidal but not on wave. Today's technologies will help solve the immediate needs, but we need to work hard nurturing tomorrow's low carbon technologies today. Ocean energy represents one of the more difficult forms of renewable energy to harness. The UK is leading internationally in the development of marine energy but further development investment is needed to move the technology forward. Marine energy could supply up to 2 GW of UK electricity demand by 2020 and significantly more than this by 2050. The development of ocean energy and promising ocean driven machines are briefly reviewed, their operating conditions and the suitability of different types of hydro turbines for use as power take off options, the recent international experience, and how the technology is developing

Pelton turbine:identifying the optimum number of buckets using CFD

A numerical case study on identifying the optimum number of buckets for a Pelton turbine is presented. Three parameters: number of buckets, bucket radial position and bucket angular position are grouped since they are found to be interrelated. By identifying the best combination of the radial and angular position for each number of buckets it is shown that reduction in the number of buckets beyond the limit suggested by the available literature can improve the efficiency and be beneficial from the manufacturing complexity and cost perspective. The effect of this reduction in the amount of buckets was confirmed experimentally

Control systems for WRASPA.

The paper discusses the need for a wave energy converter (WEC) to sense and respond to its environment in order to survive and to produce its maximum useful output. Such systems are described for Wraspa, a WEC being developed at Lancaster University and first reported at ICCEP in 2007. The main control system that continually monitors and optimises the power-take-off is termed ldquoStepwise Controlrdquo and seeks to continually adjust the damping force applied to the collector to suit the wave force that drives it. The complete instrumentation and control system that will be needed is considered briefly, including the above PTO control system; direction sensing and heading control; tide level compensation; condition monitoring and provisions for access and maintenance

Swansea Bay tidal lagoon annual energy estimation

UK Energy policy is focused on the challenges posed by energy security and climate change, however, efforts to develop a low-carbon economy have overlooked tidal energy a vast and unexploited worldwide resource. Since 1981, UK tidal lagoon schemes have been recommended as an economically and environmentally attractive alternative to tidal barrages. More recently, two proposals for tidal lagoons in Swansea Bay have emerged and there have been several reports documenting the potential to harness significant tidal energy from Swansea Bay using a tidal lagoon. This paper assists in determining a realistic approximation of the energy generation potential in Swansea Bay, a numerical estimation is obtained from a zero dimension, 0D, ‘backwards difference’ computational model, utilising the latest turbine data available and high-resolution bathymetric data. This paper models the behaviour of the tidal lagoon in dual mode generation, in line with the above proposals. The results of model testing using a variety of fixed and variable parameters are displayed. The ebb mode model with provision for pumping at high tide is then explored further by carrying out optimisations of the starting head, number of turbines and turbine diameter in order to determine the maximum annual energy output from the tidal lagoon

Renewable Energy Resources Impact on Clean Electrical Power by developing the North-West England Hydro Resource Model.

This paper describes the development of a sequential decision support system to promote hydroelectric power in North-West England. The system, composed of integrated models, addresses barriers to the installation of hydroelectric power schemes. Information is linked through an economic assessment which identifies different turbine options, assesses their suitability for location and demand; and combines the different types of information in a way that supports decision making. The system is structured into five components: the hydrological resource is modelled using Low Flows 2000, the turbine options are identified from hydrological, environmental and demand requirements; and the consequences of different solutions will be fed into other components so that the environmental impacts and public acceptability can be assessed and valued. A preliminary case study is presented on an old gunpowder works to illustrate how the resource model may be employed. Historical architectural structures, power uptake and educational instruction of hydro power technology are considered

Regenerative liquid ring pumps review and advances on design and performance

The regenerative liquid ring (RLR) pump is a type of rotodynamic machine which has the ability to develop high heads at relatively low flow rates in only one impeller stage. Although the exact principle of operation of this type of pump has been a phenomenon not fully understood, it has nevertheless been widely applied for over a century in areas of liquid pumping. Despite the low efficiency, RLR pumps have several advantages over other turbomachines with similar tip speed due to relatively low manufacturing costs, simplicity, high reliability, enhanced priming behaviour and can in many applications offer a more efficient alternative. Efficiency improvements are key to reducing energy consumption and ultimately combatting the global climate change. This paper offers an extensive review into the development, performance challenges and design improvements of RLR pumps in order to provide some useful insight on future research and next steps, with a particular focus on improving efficiency throughout the pump life cycle

Development of hydro impulse turbines and new opportunities

Hydro impulse turbines are often referred to as a mature technology having been invented around 100 years ago with many of the old design guidelines producing machines of a high efficiency. However with recent advances in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) it is now possible to simulate these highly turbulent multiphase flows with good accuracy and in reasonable timescales. This has opened up an avenue for further development and understanding of these machines which has not been possible through traditional analyses and experimental testing. This paper explores some of the more recent developments of Pelton and Turgo Impulse turbines and highlights the opportunities for future development

Development of the Turgo Impulse turbine:past and present

The Turgo Impulse turbine provides a unique and novel solution to increasing the capacity of a hydraulic impulse turbine while maintaining the nozzle and spear injector system (as used in Pelton turbines) for flow regulation. This has produced a turbine which operates in the higher flow ranges usually reserved for Francis machines while maintaining a relatively flat efficiency curve, characteristic of impulse machines. Since its invention nearly 100 years ago, the Turgo turbine has been installed in thousands of locations across the globe. The majority of the development of the Turgo turbine design has been through the use of paper based and experimental studies however recent advances in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools have allowed the simulation of the complex, highly turbulent, multiphase flows associated with impulse turbines and some work has been done in applying this to the Turgo design. This review looks at the development of the of the Turgo turbine since its invention in 1919 and includes the paper-based analyses, experimental studies and the more recent CFD analyses carried out on the design