Abstract
The present work proposes a full campaign of simulation of a Darrieus-type Vertical-Axis Water Turbine (VAWaterT) operating in an open flow-field. After describing the computational model and the relative validation procedure, a complete campaign of simulations based on full RANS unsteady calculations is presented for a three-bladed rotor architecture, characterized by a NACA 0025 blade profile. Flow field characteristics are investigated for several values of tip speed ratio and for a constant unperturbed free-stream water velocity of 2 m/s. Finally, the torque coefficient generated from the three blades is determined for each simulated angular velocity, allowing the calculation of the rotor power-curve