TY - JOUR

T1 - Comparison of 4- and 5-beam acoustic Doppler current profiler configurations for measurement of turbulent kinetic energy

AU - Togneri, Michael

AU - Jones, Dale

AU - Neill, Simon

AU - Lewis, Matthew

AU - Ward, Sophie

AU - Piano, Marco

AU - Masters, Ian

PY - 2017/9/5

Y1 - 2017/9/5

N2 - Acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs) are commonly used to assess mean currents and turbulence at energetic sites. Since 2014, five-beam ADCP configurations have become more common, but conventional analysis of turbulence properties is still based on the four-beam Janus configuration. We use measurements from a single site to investigate improved estimates of turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) that are made possible by the addition of a fifth vertical beam. We conclude that four-beam estimates of TKE are suitable in most cases, and exhibit lower variance than five-beam estimates, but are more prone to contamination by wave activity.

AB - Acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs) are commonly used to assess mean currents and turbulence at energetic sites. Since 2014, five-beam ADCP configurations have become more common, but conventional analysis of turbulence properties is still based on the four-beam Janus configuration. We use measurements from a single site to investigate improved estimates of turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) that are made possible by the addition of a fifth vertical beam. We conclude that four-beam estimates of TKE are suitable in most cases, and exhibit lower variance than five-beam estimates, but are more prone to contamination by wave activity.

KW - ADCP

KW - Turbulence

KW - Tidal energy

KW - Ocean current

U2 - 10.1016/j.egypro.2017.08.170

DO - 10.1016/j.egypro.2017.08.170

M3 - Article

VL - 125

SP - 260

EP - 267

JO - Energy Procedia

JF - Energy Procedia

SN - 1876-6102

ER -