• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.418-423
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• 2014

Small hydropower has been considered as a solution to resolve the problem of exhaustion of fossil fuel and industrial pollution. In this study, we developed and tested a Cross-Flow Turbine with two guide vanes to optimize the small hydropower for the site condition with large fluctuation of head and flow rate. Furthermore, in the condition of constant inlet head, CFD analysis was carried out to analyze the effect of air suction and valve position on the performance characteristics. The results showed that the air suction can minimize the hydraulic loss caused by the Recirculation flow in the runner passage and flow impact on main shaft so that it can increase the turbine efficiency and output power.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.703-710
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• 2010

Recently, small hydropower attracts attention because of its clean, renewable and abundant energy resources to develop. However, suitable turbine type is not determined yet in the range of small hydropower and it is necessary to study for the effective turbine type. Therefore, a 80kW-Class cross-flow turbine is adopted in this study because of its simple structure and high possibility of applying to small hydropower. The result shows that as effective head increases, tangential and radial flow velocities increase and thus, the increased tangential velocity contributes to the increase of angular momentum and output torque.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.2833-2838
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• 2007

Recently, small hydropower attracts attention because of its clean, renewable and abundant energy resources to develop. However, suitable turbine type is not determined yet in the range of small hydropower and it is necessary to study for the effective turbine type. Moreover, relatively high manufacturing cost by the complex structure of the turbine is the highest barrier for developing the small hydropower turbine. Therefore, a cross-flow turbine is adopted because of its simple structure and high possibility of applying to small hydropower. The purpose of this study is to examine the optimum configuration of nozzle shape to further optimize the cross-flow hydraulic turbine structure and to improve the performance. The results show that pressure on the runner blade in Stage 1 and velocity at nozzle outlet have close relation to the turbine performance.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.191.1-191.1
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• 2010

Global concerns about environmental issues such as a greenhouse effect are increasing gradually. Quantity of emission of carbon dioxide by Hydro-Power Plants is smaller than those by power plants of other renewable energy sources. Manufacturing costs of hydro turbine is relatively very expensive because the structure of hydro turbine is very complex. Therefore, cross-flow turbine is adopted in this study because of its simple structure and high possibility of applying to small hydropower. The result shows that as effective head increases, tangential and radial flow velocities increase and thus, the increased tangential velocity contributes to the increase of angular momentum and output torque.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.45-51
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of nozzle shape on the performance and internal flow of a cross-flow hydro turbine. CFD analysis for three kinds of nozzle shape is conducted to simulate the effect of nozzle shape. The results reveal that relatively narrow nozzle width is effective to increase the turbine efficiency and output power. Almost output power is achieved at Stage 1. Therefore, optimum design of the nozzle shape is necessary to improve the turbine performance. Recirculation flow in the runner passage decreases the turbine efficiency and output power because the flow make hydraulic loss and collision loss in the region. Air should be put into the runner passage and the recirculating flow should be suppressed by the air layer in the runner.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.698-706
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• 2008

Performance improvement of Small hydro turbine is a very important subject to solve in the stage of introduction and development of the turbine. Cross-flow hydro turbine should be also studied more in detail for the turbine performance in order to extend the sites of application. In order to improve the turbine performance, the effect of the turbine shape on the turbine performance should be examined. Therefore, the effect of runner blade number on the turbine performance is investigated by use of a commercial CFD code. The results show that runner blade number gives remarkable effect on the efficiency and output power of the turbine. Pressure on the surface of the runner blade changes considerably by the blade number at Stage 1, but relatively small change of velocity distribution occurs in the flow passage.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Marine Engineers Conference
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• 2011.06a
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• pp.211-211
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• 2011

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.25-30
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• 2012

Renewable energy has been interested because of fluctuation of oil price, depletion of fossil fuel resources and environmental impact. Amongst renewable energy resources, hydropower is most reliable and cost effective way. In this study, to develop a new type of micro hydro turbine which can be operated in the range of very low specific speed, a cross-flow hydro turbine with simple structure is proposed. The turbine is designed to be used at the very low specific speed range of hydropower resources, such as very high-head and considerably small-flow rate water resources. CFD analysis on the performance and internal flow characteristics of the turbine is conducted to obtain a practical data for the new design method of the turbine. Results show that optimized arrangement of guide vane angle and inner guide angle can give contribution to the turbine performance improvement.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.30-39
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• 2014

The cross flow turbine is economical because of its simple structure. For remote rural region, there are needs for a more simple structure and very low head cross flow turbines. However, in this kind of locations, the water from upstream always flows into the turbine with some other materials such as sand and pebble. These materials will be damage to the runner blade and shorten the turbine lifespan. Therefore, there is a need to develop a new type of cross flow turbine for the remote rural region where there is availability of abundant resources. The new design of the cross flow turbine has an inlet open duct, without guide vane and nozzle to simplify the structure. However, the turbine with inlet open duct and very low head shows relatively low efficiency. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to optimize the shape of the turbine inlet to improve the efficiency, and investigate the internal flow of a very low head cross flow turbine. There are two steps to optimize the turbine inlet shape. Firstly, by changing the turbine open angle along with changing the turbine inlet open duct bottom line (IODBL) location to investigate the internal flow. Secondly, keeping the turbine IODBL location at the maximum efficiency achieved at the first step, and changing the turbine IODBL angle to improve the performance. The result shows that there is a 7.4% of efficiency improvement by optimizing turbine IODBL location (open angle), and there is 0.3% of efficiency improvement by optimizing the turbine IODBL angle.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.76-86
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• 2019

The cross-flow turbine is a key hydraulic power system that is widely due to low costs, high efficiency, and low maintenance. In particular, the cross-flow turbine considered as the most suitable turbine for low head situations as it is known to operate down to 5 m of water head. However, the conventional cross-flow turbine is unsuitable for ultra-low head situations with less than a 3 m water head. In this study, we propose an inverted-type cross-flow turbine to overcome the limitations of conventional cross-flow turbines under ultra-low head situations. First, we described the limitations of conventional turbines and suggested a new turbine for the ultra-low head circumstances. Second, we investigated the performance of the new turbine using CFD analysis. Results demonstrated the effects of the design parameters, such as number of blades and rotor diameter ratio, on the performance of the suggested turbine. As a result, we developed an inverted-type cross-flow turbine with up to 60% efficiency under low water head conditions.