• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.40 no.8
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• pp.698-703
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• 2016

Francis hydro turbines have been most widely used throughout the world because of their wide range of head and flow rate applications. In most applications, they are used for high heads and flow rates. Currently, Korea is developing technology for Francis hydro turbine design and manufacture. In order to understand the internal details of Francis hydro turbines further, a new Francis turbine model runner is designed and model internal flow characteristics are investigated. The specific speed of the Francis hydro turbine model runner is $Ns=200m-kW-min^{-1}$. The runner blade is designed successfully according to the port area and one-dimensional loss analysis. The best efficiency point of the Francis hydro turbine model achieves 90% at the design condition. CFD analysis yields a hill chart of the Francis hydro turbine model for use in predicting performance.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.618-626
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• 2012

Suppression of abnormal flow phenomena in the Francis hydro turbine is very important to improve the turbine performance. Especially, as cavitation and cavitation surge makes serious problems when the turbine is operated in the range of partial flow rate, optimum method of suppressing the abnormal flow characteristics is required necessarily. Moreover, as swirl flow in the draft tube of the Francis turbine decreases pressure at the inlet of the draft tube, suppression of the swirl flow can be an useful method of suppressing the occurrence of cavitation. In order to clarifying the possibility of suppressing the swirl flow by J-Groove in the draft tube, a series of CFD analysis has been conducted in the range of partial load, designed condition and excessive flow rate of a Francis turbine. A kind of J-Groove is designed and applied to the draft tube of the Francis hydro turbine model. The pressure contours, circumferential velocity vectors and vortex core regions in the draft tube are compared by the conditions with or without J-Groove. In addition, a group of data about the velocity in the draft is presented to show the influence of J-Groove.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.19-25
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• 2015

As a core component of a hydropower station, hydro turbines play a vital role in the integration of a power station. Research on the technology of hydro turbine is continuously increasing with the development of water electricity. On the basis of one-dimensional loss analysis, for three-dimension design, there are a lot of dimension of the internal flow passage shapes that are determined by experience. Therefore, the effect of the internal flow passage shapes on the performance and internal flow characteristics of a Francis hydro turbine model is investigated in this study. In this study, the small curvature of runner blade trailing edge shape is good for improving the efficiency of Francis turbine. The straight stay vane leading edge is good for suppressing the secondary flow. Moreover, suitable tongue passage shape and stay vane number improve the performance of the turbine considerably.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.04a
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• pp.302-305
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• 2009

The Francis type hydro turbine with vertical axis has been designed and analized for hydraulic performance verification. The guide vane angle of turbine casing were designed to be varied according to the condition of head and flowrate. When the changes in flowrate and output were comparatively large, the efficiency drop were small, so the efficiency characteristics and stability of the entire operating condition were maintained in good condition. These results showed that the developed hydro turbine in this study will be suitable for small hydro power stations with medium and high head such as agricultural reservoirs and large dam.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.167-171
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• 2008

The Francis type hydro turbine with vertical axis has been designed and analized for hydraulic performance verification. The guide vane angle of turbine casing were designed to be varied according to the condition of head and flowrate. When the changes in flowrate and output were comparatively large, the efficiency drop were small, so the efficiency characteristics and stability of the entire operating condition were maintained in good condition. These results showed that the developed hydro turbine in this study will be suitable for small hydro power stations with medium and high head such as agricultural reservoirs and large dam.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.5-10
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• 2016

As a key component of a Francis turbine facility, the runner performance plays a vital role in the performance of the turbine. It is effective and successful to design a Francis turbine runner blade with good performance by one dimensional hydraulic design method. On the basis of one dimensional hydraulic analysis, there are a lot of parameters of the internal flow passage shapes determined by experience. Among those parameters, the effect of port area of blade on the performance of a Francis turbine is investigated in this study. A given Francis turbine model was selected for investigating the port area of blade on the performance. The result shows that the effect of port area of runner blade on the outflow angle from runner passage on the performance is quite significant. A correct exit flow angle reduces the energy loss at draft tube, which has the best efficiency of the turbine model.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.664-667
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• 2009

The Francis type hydro turbine with vertical axis has been designed and analized for hydraulic performance verification. The guide vane angle of turbine casing were designed to be varied according to the condition of head and flowrate. When the changes in flowrate and output were comparatively large, the efficiency drop were small, so the efficiency characteristics and stability of the entire operating condition were maintained in good condition. These results showed that the developed hydro turbine in this study will be suitable for small hydro power stations with medium and high head such as agricultural reservoirs and large dam.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.274-281
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• 2013

The variable demand on the energy market requires a great flexibility in operating hydro turbines. However, Francis turbine operated at off-design conditions poses technical challenges related to large unsteady forces given by residual swirl and angular momentum. In order to improve the performance of a Francis turbine, the paper presents a numerical investigation of the 3D flow in the turbine at off-design conditions and discusses the influence of variable guide vane openings on the internal flow of a Francis turbine with the help of computational fluid dynamics. First, the internal flow characteristics of Francis turbine operated by varied guide vane angle at off design condition are computed and the optimal guide vane angle is obtained. Secondly, the Francis turbine is operated with guide vane number varies at the optimal guide vane angle. Finally, pressure contours and velocity distributions in the distributor are discussed and compared.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.209-219
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• 2015

A robust multi-fidelity optimization methodology has been developed, focusing on efficiently handling industrial runner design of hydraulic Francis turbines. The computational task is split between low- and high-fidelity phases in order to properly balance the CFD cost and required accuracy in different design stages. In the low-fidelity phase, a physics-based surrogate optimization loop manages a large number of iterative optimization evaluations. Two derivative-free optimization methods use an inviscid flow solver as a physics-based surrogate to obtain the main characteristics of a good design in a relatively fast iterative process. The case study of a runner design for a low-head Francis turbine indicates advantages of integrating two derivative-free optimization algorithms with different local- and global search capabilities.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.202-208
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• 2015

For a prototype turbine operating under part load conditions, the turbine output is fluctuating strongly, leading to the power station incapable of connecting to the grid. The field test of the prototype turbine shows that the main reason is the resonance between the draft tube vortex frequency and the generator natural vibration frequency. In order to reduce the fluctuation of power output, different measures including the air admission, water admission and adding flow deflectors in the draft tube are put forward. CFD method is adopted to simulate the three-dimensional unsteady flow in the Francis turbine, to calculate pressure fluctuations in draft tube under three schemes and to compare with the field test result of the prototype turbine. Calculation results show that all the three measures can reduce the pressure pulsation amplitude in the draft tube. The method of water supply and adding flow deflector both can effectively change the frequency and avoid resonance, thus solving the output fluctuation problem. However, the method of air admission could not change the pressure fluctuation frequency.