Author(s)

Ackim P. Mvula, Lennox Siwale, Edwin Luwaya

Mechanical Department, Copperbelt University, Kitwe, Zambia.

The rate of electrification in rural areas in Zambia is very low, currently standing at less than 5% despite having abundant flowing water resources. Hydrokinetic technology is an alternative among other promising technologies for rural area electrification because of availability of abundant flowing Rivers and low population in rural settlement. In this paper, the author designed and numerically simulated a circular arc blade hydrokinetic turbine system. The design power for the horizontal axis hydrokinetic turbine was 3 kW at water velocity of 3 m/s with the tip speed ratio of 2.5, angle of attack of 10 degrees and power coefficient of 0.4. In this work, a numerical simulation was employed to characterize and develop the horizontal axis hydrokinetic turbine. The prototype circular arc blade horizontal axis hydrokinetic turbine was tested in one of stream in Zambia and the results were compared with the numerical simulation results.

Horizontal Axis Hydrokinetic Turbine, Tip Speed Ratio, Power Coefficient, Circular Arc Profile

Mvula, A. , Siwale, L. and Luwaya, E. (2019) Design of Circular Arc Blade Hydrokinetic Turbine—A Case of Rural Electrification in Zambia. Journal of Power and Energy Engineering, 7, 60-69. doi: 10.4236/jpee.2019.79004.