Influence of hydrophilic and hydrophobic coating on hydrofoil performance

Tidal power turbines take advantage of tidal energy to generate renewable hydropower. Since the tidal turbines are fixed in the ocean, it is common to paint the blade and the structure of tidal energy generator with antifouling coating to prevent marine organisms from attaching to them. Therefore, it is important to predict the influence of the coatings on the tidal turbine’s performance. In this paper, hydrophilic and hydrophobic coatings which are known to be useful in antifouling were studied from the perspective of flow field and cavitation. Cavitation was visualized with a high-speed video camera and the cavitation characteristics of blades painted with hydrophilic or hydrophobic coatings were compared. With this visualization, it was possible to observe that the hydrophilic foil and hydrophobic foil had distinctive characteristics in cavitation inception and growth. Moreover, the reliability of both coatings was evaluated in order to discuss whether these coatings were useful for long. Immersion tests were carried out to evaluate the deterioration of the coatings in pure water. In addition, magnetostriction vibratory tests were carried out to evaluate the resistance to cavitation erosion of both coatings. From these investigations, a chemical transformation of the hydrophilic coating was observed. Moreover, both coatings were easily removed when they were exposed to strong cavitation impacts.