Discussion: “Unsteady RANS Simulations of Wells Turbine Under Transient Flow Conditions” (Hu and Li, ASME J. Offshore Mech. Arct. Eng., 140(1), p. 011901)

Abstract

The work by Hu and Li (2018, “Unsteady RANS Simulations of Wells Turbine Under Transient Flow Conditions,” ASME J. Offshore Mech. Arct. Eng., 140(1), p. 011901) presents the numerical simulation of a high-solidity Wells turbine by means of a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) (Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS)) approach. A key aspect highlighted by the authors is the presence of a hysteretic loop in the machine's performance curves, due (according to their explanation) to the interaction of vortices shed by the blade with the blade circulation, which is responsible for the aerodynamic forces. It is our opinion that this work contains some serious errors that invalidate the results. In this brief discussion, we aim to demonstrate how the hysteresis found and discussed by the authors should not be present in the turbine analyzed in Hu and Li (2018, “Unsteady RANS Simulations of Wells Turbine Under Transient Flow Conditions,” ASME J. Offshore Mech. Arct. Eng., 140(1), p. 011901), and it is unlikely to be present in any Wells turbine. The fact that Hu and Li find hysteresis in their simulations is most likely caused by numerical errors due to an insufficient temporal discretization. This and other inaccuracies could have been avoided with a more careful consideration of the available literature.