Abstract
India being a tropical country, has a large ocean thermal gradient available throughout the year that can be utilized to extract energy. This energy can be used to power a Low-temperature thermal desalination (LTTD) plant using the Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) method. OTEC works at a very low pressure, and developing a low-pressure turbine for OTEC is very challenging. The turbine needs to be designed to produce maximum power while maintaining its structural integrity to make the system self-sustaining. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) was carried out for a single rotor blade and the complete rotor in ANSYS Workbench to ascertain its strength. The paper presents the static analysis of a single turbine blade and static and modal analysis of complete rotor assembly. The investigations led to improvement in the design and helped in the selection of optimal design to meet the objective.