The Design of a Low Speed Water Turbine

This paper describes a method for the design of a low r.p.m water turbine designed for an operating point of 5 knots that would be suitable for use as a generator on a recreational sailboat. The low flow speed also means that this design process is also suitable for the hydraulic design of stationary tidal or current generators. The turbine example described in this pare has subsequently been manufactured and successfully tested with a hydraulic efficiency of 13%. Details of the testing are described in a separate paper. (Bredariol et al (2010)).