Abstract
Hydrokinetic turbines are prominent solutions for providing electricity by utilizing the kinetic energy of flowing water streams. Various sites parameters such as flow velocity, channel dimensions and placement of turbine rotor across the water channel are the decisive factors to effectively harness the hydrokinetic energy. In current research, hybrid rotor is investigated considering different values of clearance and blockage ratio (by varying the channel dimensions). A hybrid rotor having the two conventional rotors (Savonius and Darrieus) is analyzed under different flow parameters such as flow velocity and tip speed ratio. To visualize the flow behavior across the turbine vicinity, flow contours have been analyzed and discussed. For the considered range of parameters, hybrid hydrokinetic rotor yields its maximum hydrodynamic performance corresponding to 0.55 value of clearance ratio. The maximum power coefficient as 0.122 occurs corresponding to 26.32% blockage ratio at 0.98 value of tip speed ratio (TSR).