Cloud-based design of water turbines for power generation

There is significant political and industrial demand for the development of new efficient systems which are able to increase the exploitation of renewable energy resources: solar, wind and hydro power. Among these, water turbines are the oldest renewable energy system. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation can dramatically improve the turbine design process and reduce the number of trials needed to set-up the final product. The activity in this experiment consists on the development of a customized tool for water turbines design, based on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations on HPC cloud infrastructure. New operation models for small size water turbines are proposed, which are able, compared to conventional plants, to exploit a larger share of the hydro power potential in both developed and emerging countries. The goal is achieved starting from the project requisite supplied by the end user. Initial geometry is inserted in a Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) automatic process where a parametric approach is used for a simulation driven optimization. The result is the identification of the best configuration, customized on the user request. Current practice in the hydro power sector is to determine empirically the suitable plant in a series of time-consuming experiments. However SMEs in this sector have to face private and public tenders to sell their turbines in both national and global markets, where the competition is very strong and the development time very short.