COSMOS analysis software helps put new twist on electric turbine design

Company Sigma Design Company Industry Power Location U.S.A. Product Used COSMOSWorks, COSMOSFloWorks Type of Analysis Fluid Dynamics More Details

The Challenge
Hydropower is a clean energy source, but it requires huge, expensive dams that flood vast areas, displacing people and disrupting the environment. GCK Technology, a San Antonio-based engineering company, has developed a unique helical turbine which taps alternative sources of water power without the widespread environmental harm of large dams. The Gorlov turbine design consists of blades twisted into the shape of a helix, the shape of a DNA molecule. The turbine's blades rotate at twice the velocity of the water current flow, and capture 75 percent more of the water's energy than a conventional turbine. An open-river system of helical turbines should generate electricity for just $400 to $600 per kilowatt, far less than the cost of constructing other power-generation systems. The helical turbine also has virtually zero operating costs.

After Alexander Gorlov developed the helical design concept, GCK engineers needed to take laboratory and prototype data and turn it into a real working machine. They wanted to determine loads on the blades, shaft and bearings so they could optimize the design, reduce manufacturing costs, and ensure reliable operation. Before the advent of analysis software, engineers would have had to build a prototype and instrument the turbine with strain gauges and encoders. This would have taken too long, determined stress at only a few discrete points, and could not provide any information on flow for improving the design or for developing future designs of varying sizes.

The Solution
To reduce their time to market and better manage the project, GCK hired Sigma Design Company, a New Jersey-based design/engineering firm. Sigma performed computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and finite element analysis (FEA) on the helical turbine design, took the analysis results and developed a design package that was manufacturing friendly. Performing the tests with COSMOSFloWorks™ CFD software and COSMOSWorks™ FEA software, both from SolidWorks Corporation, helped reduce the turbine's overall design cycle costs by 50 percent. COSMOSFloWorks and COSMOSWorks are tightly integrated with SolidWorks® 3D mechanical design software, which Sigma used to render GCK's designs as 3D solid models.

Summary and Metrics:

• Reduce overall design cycle costs by 50%
• Optimized design
• Reduced manufacturing costs
• Ensured reliable operation