The objective of this project was to characterize the performance of Sitkana’s shrouded axial-flow turbine rotor. The purpose of the shroud is to provide structural integrity while using thin blades which can reduce the material cost of the rotor. In addition, the shroud minimizes the risk of contact between marine animals and the rotor tips.

The results indicated that two variants performed the best of the shrouded rotors with similar blockage-corrected power coefficients of 0.21. Of these, rotor #1 had a lower thrust coefficient value. The power coefficient of 0.21 is sufficient to drive the generators that Sitkana plans to incorporate into a full-scale prototype, indicating the project objective was successfully achieved.

This project was supported during RFTS 8.