The final cavitation testing of the ACORN (Advanced Coatings for Offshore Renewable Energy) project has been concluded.
The coatings developed during the project, which were applied on a marine turbine prototype, have been exposed to aggressive conditions in a cavitation tunnel, and according to the Technological Centre of Components Foundation (CTC), one of the partners in the project, the testing has yielded good preliminary results.
Alvaro Rodriguez, representing CTC, and members of the Dutch tidal energy company Tocardo Tidal Turbines have supervised the tests conducted at SVA facilities located in Potsdam, Germany.
After visual inspection, no significant defects have been identified, CTC’s press release reads.
The purpose of these tests was the validation of the results obtained in the phase of numerical modeling. The final inspection to validate the cavitation erosion results will be carried out by TWI.
After selecting three coating materials for researching and the application of the coatings in samples to carry out the tests, the phase of detailed analysis of the results will be the final stage of the project.
Part of the final results of ACORN project will be revealed at International Conference on Ocean Energy (ICOE) 2016 in February.
The aim of the ACORN project is to develop a new, potentially patentable and long-lasting solution to the problem of barnacle biofouling, offering specific advantages for static offshore structures such as wind turbine towers and ocean energy generators, and secondly to develop and prove a corrosion and cavitation resistant coating suitable for tidal energy generators.