In the present research, a hydrokinetic turbine is designed, and evaluated technically, economically and environmentally to produce power from low velocity currents. Firstly, the hydraulic characteristics of three existing canals is investigated and the blade profile for the turbine rotor is determined by using the Schmitz's theory and XFOIL software. The geometrical model is then created in the SolidWorks and simulated in the ANSYS Fluent to estimate the power generation capacity. According to the results, a correlation is proposed to estimate the power generation by the turbine in different water velocities. The results are validated with the manufacturers data. The results show that the efficiency of the proposed turbine is almost 90%, the investment payback period is only 3.1 years, with a positive net present value. Environmentally, it shows that for a 1 meter in diameter turbine and water velocity of 1.5 m/s, carbon dioxide will reduce by 0.57 tons per year. The economic and environmental benefits improve greatly at higher water velocities. The results show that the proposed hydrokinetic turbine even by working in low velocity stream can supply electricity demand of rural area near the canals for the long lifespan of the turbine which is more than 25 years.
Rasooli et al. (Wed,) studied this question.