Turbine maker uses SolidWorks CAD to turn tide into electricity
1 min read
Green-Tide Turbine's revolutionary turbine – which generates electricity from slower tidal currents that leave conventional turbines useless – has been developed using SolidWorks.
Founder Michael Evans explains that he uses SolidWorks CAD and Flow Simulation to visualise ideas for his company's tidal turbines, which use a duct with a stator/rotor arrangement to convert water flow into electricity.
"I'm not the sort person who has the patience to sit and work things out. I have an appreciation of how things work, but my knowledge of computational flow dynamics is not that deep, so that's why I employ people from Cambridge University and Cambridge Consultants to do that work.
"Having easily accessible tools that help me express an idea helps me greatly. I have something to show to my engineers to show there's some substance to the idea," he adds.
Evans modifies his designs with SolidWorks CAD and simulates their behaviour with SolidWorks Flow Simulation to improve the turbines' survivability. That ultimately improves their economic viability, he says, which is a constant challenge in the renewable energy industry.
Once he and his engineers have finalised a modification, they send a SolidWorks 3D model to a rapid prototyping partner that produces a part for live testing.
"SolidWorks is like a very advanced sketchbook. It gets me 80% of the way to a finished design with 20% of the effort," says Evans.
