Investigating the effect of tail water depth on Archimedes screw turbine in generating energy from flowing water in canals

Kinetic and potential energies available in water dissipating using structures like drops can be used for generating electricity on small scale. To this aim, the Archimedes screw turbine, as an emerging turbine, can be employed for converting kinetic and potential energies to mechanical energy in irrigation canals. However, there is no literature in this regard. In this research, the effect of tailwater on turbine performance was investigated. To this end, an Archimedes screw turbine was designed and validated using FLOW-3D, and the effect of different submersion ratios was investigated. The results showed that there needs 0.5 to 0.75 submersion ratio in the downstream canal to avoid extra power loss, resulting in maximum power and efficiency in the same conditions.