This paper describes the structural design of a tidal turbine composite blade. The structural design is preceded by two steps: hydrodynamic design and determination of extreme loads. The hydrodynamic design provides the blade external shape, i.e. the chord and twist distributions along the blade, which result in optimal performance of the tidal turbine over its lifetime. The extreme loads, i.e....

A brief review of the literature is provided on the characteristics of marine currents and the approaches used for simulating tidal turbines. The feasibility of using CFD models to simulate time-dependent turbulent flow around a tidal turbine is then explored. Two different approaches for specifying the structure of the turbulent inflow conditions in CFD models are compared: the von Kármán spec...