Performance characteristics and bluff-body modeling of high-blockage cross-flow turbine arrays with varying rotor geometry

While confinement is understood to increase the power and thrust coefficients of cross-flow turbines, how the optimal rotor geometry changes with the blockage ratio---defined as the ratio between the array projected area and the channel cross-sectional area---has not been systematically explored. Here, the interplay between rotor geometry and the blockage ratio on turbine performance is investigated experimentally with an array of two identical cross-flow turbines at blockage ratios from 35% to 55%. Three geometric parameters are varied---the number of blades, the chord-to-radius ratio, and the preset pitch angle---resulting in 180 unique combinations of rotor geometry and blockage ratio. While the optimal chord-to-radius ratio and preset pitch angle do not depend on the blockage ratio, the optimal blade count increases with the blockage ratio---an inversion of the relationship between efficiency and blade count typically observed at lower blockage. To explore the combined effects of ro..., This data was collected in the Alice C. Tyler flume at the University of Washington using a custom laboratory-scale two-turbine array test rig. The raw data for each experiment was processed using custom MATLAB code. Further details of the physical system and data acquisition methods can be found in the supporting manuscript., , # **Data from: Performance characteristics and bluff-body modeling of high-blockage cross-flow turbine arrays with varying rotor geometry**

Dataset: [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.1c59zw45d](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.1c59zw45d)
Supporting Article (*Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy*): [https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0272110](https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0272110)
Supporting Article (Open-Access on arXiv): [https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2410.19165](https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2410.19165)

This dataset represents 180 cross-flow turbine array experiments exploring the effects of the blockage ratio (B), blade count, chord-to-radius ratio (c/R), and preset pitch angle on array performance at high blockage. The experimental methods and results are described in detail in our paper: \"Performance characteristics and bluff-body modeling of high-blockage cross-flow turbine arrays with varying rotor geometry. The experiments were conducted in the Alice C. Tyler flume at the University of ...,