Abstract: The paper discusses the development of GH Tidal Bladed, a design tool for tidal current turbines. Typical results from a generic turbine simulated with the code are presented, in terms of its power curve and a number of salient load component time histories. The rationale behind the development of the GL draft guideline for Ocean Energy Converters is presented, focussing on its importance in the certification process.
The set of load cases to be considered for tidal devices is described. The draft GL-Guideline was implemented by running typical load cases for a generic tidal device using GH Tidal Bladed, resulting in an example set of extreme and fatigue certification loads for the turbine. Finally, some future recommendations for work on tidal device modelling and standards development are discussed.
