A raceway pond is a type of closed-loop recirculation channel that is long and shallow and is commonly used for large-scale microalgae cultivation. A key issue with the incorrect design of a raceway pond is the presence of a dead zone, where the flow velocity is low or non-uniform. This can have a negative impact on the growth of algae and reduce the efficiency of the cultivation process. To address this issue, this study focused on analyzing the hydrodynamic performance of the pond by examining the effect of different aspect ratios on velocity uniformity. Aspect ratio refers to the ratio of the length/width. This study found that an aspect ratio greater than 15 provides better uniformity in flow velocity, improving microalgae growth in the pond. This paper also investigated the impact of the location of the paddle wheel, which is used to create flow and minimize dead zones. Two different locations of the paddle wheel were considered, and computational fluid dynamics and k-ω and large eddy simulation (LES) turbulence closure equations were used to simulate the hydrodynamics of the pond. This study found that the efficiency of the raceway pond is better when the paddle wheel is placed in the middle of the total length of the pond. After simulating the raceway pond using both the k-ω and LES turbulence models, it was found that the LES model provided better results. This suggests that the LES model was able to capture the turbulent flow characteristics more accurately in the raceway pond as compared to the k-ω model.
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