• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.284-290
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• 2006

For the case of high head and critical low flow rate range of micro hydropower resources, it requires very low specific speed turbines which are lower than conventional impulse turbine's specific speed. In order to satisfy the request for very low specific speed turbine with high efficiency, a new positive displacement turbine is developed. The performance characteristics of the new turbine is tested and compared with a conventional impulse turbine, which is used for automatic water faucet system. The purpose of present study is to develop an high performance turbine that can be used to extract micro hydropower potential of a water supply system. The test results show that the positive displacement turbine is much more efficient than the conventional turbine and it can sustain high efficiency under the wide range of operating conditions. The pressure pulsations at the inlet and outlet of the positive displacement turbine can be considerably minimized by using simple pressure damper.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.291-295
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• 2006

Recently, greenhouse effect by $CO_2$ gas emitted by use of fossil fuel causes earth environmental problem. As a countermeasure of the global warming. micro hydropower under 100kW becomes the focus of attention for its clean and renewable energy sources. Newly developed micro positive displacement hydraulic turbine shows high efficiency and good applicability for the micro hydropoewer. The purpose of this study is to clarify the influence of leakage loss and effective head on the performance of the positive displacement hydraulic turbine for the further improvement of the turbine performance. The results show that the turbine. with a smaller side clearance. has much higher efficiency than that with bigger side clearance and it can sustain the high efficiency under the wider range of operation conditions. The turbine torque is proportional to the effective head and independent of the flow rate. The leakage is also dependent on the effective head but nearly independent of the flow rate.