• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.84-93
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• 2018

Three-dimensional (3D) numerical simulations have been carried out to study how coolant injection conditions influence the cooling efficiency and projectile ejection performance in a mixture-gas ejection system (or gas-steam launch system). The 3D single-phase computational model was verified using a 1D model constructed with reference to the previous research and then a two-phase flow computation simulating coolant injection on to hot gas was performed using a DPM (Discrete Phase Model). As a result of varying the coolant flow rate and number of injection holes, cooling efficiency was improved when the number of injection holes were increased. In addition, the change of the coalescence frequency and spatial distribution of coolant droplets caused by the injection condition variation resulted in a change of the droplet diameter, affecting the evaporation rate of coolant. The evaporation was found to be a critical factor in the design optimization of the ejection system by suppressing the pressure drop while the temperature decreases inside the breech.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.95-104
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• 2022

Micro hydropower is a readily available renewable energy source that can be harvested utilizing hydrokinetic turbines from shallow water canals, irrigation and industrial channel flows, and run-off river stream flows. These sources generally have low head (<1 m) and low velocity which makes it difficult to harvest energy using conventional turbines. A horizontal-axis screw turbine was designed and numerically tested to extract power from such low-head water sources. The 3-bladed screw-type turbine is placed horizontally perpendicular to the incoming flow, partially submerged in a narrow water channel at no-head condition. The turbine hydraulic performances were studied using Computational Fluid Dynamics models. Turbine design parameters such as the shroud diameter, the hub-to-shroud ratios, and the submerged depths were obtained through a steady-state parametric study. The resulting turbine configuration was then tested by solving the unsteady multiphase free-surface equations mimicking an actual open channel flow scenario. The turbine performance in the shallow channel were studied for various Tip Speed Ratios (TSR). The highest power coefficient was obtained at a TSR of 0.3. The turbine was then scaled-up to test its performance on a real site condition at a head of 0.3 m. The highest power coefficient obtained was 0.18. Several losses were observed in the 3-bladed turbine design and to minimize losses, the number of blades were increased to five. The power coefficient improved by 236% for a 5-bladed screw turbine. The fluid losses were minimized by increasing the blade surface area submerged in water. The turbine performance was increased by 74.4% after dipping the turbine to a bottom wall clearance of 30 cm from 60 cm. The final output of the novel horizontal-axis screw turbine showed a 2.83 kW power output at a power coefficient of 0.63. The turbine is expected to produce 18,744 kWh/year of electricity. The design feasibility test of the turbine showed promising results to harvest energy from small hydropower sources.