A blade element actuator disk method, embedded in a Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes solver (RANS-BE), is utilised to design tidal rotors and investigate their performance across a range of different tip speed ratios, blockage ratios, and freestream turbulence intensities. The design solidity ratio of the blade is found to increase as the design tip speed ratio decreases and the blockage ratio increases. The power and thrust coefficients are seen to increase in more constrained flows. The design of rotors for higher freestream turbulence intensity is not straightforward, as both the effect of increased flow confinement in the bypass region due to turbulence enhanced downstream wake expansion, and the change in hydrodynamic characteristics of the rotor blades, have to be considered. Blade resolved computations are used to validate the design solution of the RANS-BE design tool through comparison of both integrated turbine quantities (thrust and power) as well as spanwise variation in blade loading.
