Investigating the Hydrodynamic Behavior of Innovative Archimedean Hydropower Turbines

The present paper presents the preliminary investigation of the hydrodynamic behavior of Archimedean hydropower turbines, with inclined and horizontal axis, for the exploitation of the low-head hydraulic energy and the kinetic energy of natural and artificial watercourses, including coastal and tidal currents. By using the similarity theory, some experimental cochlear rotors have been developed and some approaches have been made for a series of cochlear small hydropower plants covering small heads, including conditions with zero heads for the particular cases of the coastal and tidal currents of Cephalonia and Euripus Strait.