• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• 제2권4호
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• pp.392-399
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• 2009

The paper concerns the description of the step by step development process of the new fixed blade runner called "Mixer" suitable for the uprating of the Francis turbines units installed at the older low head hydropower plants. In the paper the details of hydraulic and mechanical design are presented. Since the rotational speed of the new runner is significantly higher then the rotational speed of the original Francis one, the direct coupling of the turbine to the generator can be applied. The maximum efficiency at prescribed operational point was reached by the geometry optimization of two most important components. In the first step the optimization of the draft tube geometry was carried out. The condition for the draft tube geometry optimization was to design the new geometry of the draft tube within the original bad draft tube shape without any extensive civil works. The runner blade geometry optimization was carried out on the runner coupled with the draft tube domain. The blade geometry of the runner was optimized using automatic direct search optimization procedure. The method used for the objective function minimum search is a kind of the Nelder-Mead simplex method. The objective function concerns efficiency, required net head and cavitation features. After successful hydraulic design the modal and stress analysis was carried out on the prototype scale runner. The static pressure distribution from flow simulation was used as a load condition. The modal analysis in air and in water was carried out and the results were compared. The final runner was manufactured in model scale and it is going to be tested in hydraulic laboratory. Since the turbine with the fixed blade runner does not allow double regulation like in case of full Kaplan turbine, it can be profitably used mainly at power plants with smaller changes of operational conditions or in case with more units installed. The advantages are simple manufacturing, installation and therefore lower expenses and short delivery time for turbine uprating.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국신재생에너지학회 2010년도 춘계학술대회 초록집
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• pp.191.2-191.2
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• 2010

The conventional method to assess turbine performance is its model testing which becomes costly and time consuming for several design alternatives in design optimization. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has become a cost effective tool for predicting detailed flow information in turbine space to enable the selection of best design. In the present paper, Francis turbine of commercial small hydropower plants which is under 70kw is investigated. Solutions are investigated with respect to the hydraulic characteristics against an outward angle of guide vane, the number of guide vane and head (inlet velocity). By suitable modification of the runner shape, low pressure zone on the leading edge can be reduced. If the entire runner is to be optimized in this manner, flow simulation tests have to be carried out on a series of different geometrical shape.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• 제8권3호
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• pp.183-192
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• 2015

The aim of this study was comparative analysis of sediment-induced erosion on optimized design and traditional design of Francis runner blade. The analysis was conducted through laboratory experiments in a test rig called Rotating Disc Apparatus. The results showed that the extent of erosion was significantly less in the optimized design when compared based on the material loss. It was observed that the optimized design could reduce sediment erosion by about 14.4% if it was used in place of the reference design for entire duration of the experiment. Based on the observations and results obtained, it has been concluded that the optimization of hydraulic design of blade profile of Francis runner can significantly reduce the effect of sediment-induced erosion.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• 제2권2호
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• pp.102-109
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• 2009

A design optimization system for Francis turbine was developed. The system consists of design program and CFD solver. Flow passage shapes are optimized automatically by using the system with Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm (MOGA). In this study, the system was applied to a high specific speed Francis turbine (nSP = 250m-kW). The runner profile and the draft tube shape were optimized to decrease hydraulic losses. As the results, it was shown that the turbine efficiency was improved in wide operating range, furthermore, the height of draft tube was reduced with the hydraulic performance kept.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• 제8권2호
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• pp.102-112
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• 2015

In the Nordic grid, a trend observed the recent years is the increase in grid frequency variations, which means the frequency is outside the normal range (49.9-50.1 Hz) more often. Variations in the grid frequency leads to changes in the speed of rotation of all the turbines connected to the grid, since the speed of rotation is closely related to the grid frequency for synchronous generators. When the speed of rotation changes, this implies that the net torque acting on the rotating masses are changed, and the material of the turbine runners must withstand these changes in torque. Frequency variations thus leads to torque oscillations in the turbine, which become dynamical loads that the runner must be able to withstand. Several new Francis runners have recently experienced cracks in the runner blades due to fatigue, obviously due to the runner design not taking into account the actual loads on the runner. In this paper, the torque oscillations and dynamic loads due to the variations in grid frequency are simulated in a 1D MATLAB program, and measured grid frequency is used as input to the simulation program. The maximum increase and decrease in the grid frequency over a 440 seconds interval have been investigated, in addition to an extreme event where the frequency decreased far below the normal range within a few seconds. The dynamic loading originating from grid frequency variations is qualitatively found by a constructed variable $T_{stress}$, and for the simulations presented here the variations in $T_{stress}$ are found to be around 3 % of the mean value, which is a relatively small dynamic load. The important thing to remember is that these dynamic loads come in addition to all other dynamic loads, like rotor-stator interaction and draft tube surges, and should be included in the design process, if not found to be negligible.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• 제2권4호
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• pp.303-314
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• 2009

The present paper shows the results of numerical and experimental modal analyses of Francis runners, which were executed in air and in still water. In its first part this paper is focused on the numerical prediction of the model parameters by means of FEM and the validation of the FEM method. Influences of different geometries on modal parameters and frequency reduction ratio (FRR), which is the ratio of the natural frequencies in water and the corresponding natural frequencies in air, are investigated for two different runners, one prototype and one model runner. The results of the analyses indicate very good agreement between experiment and simulation. Particularly the frequency reduction ratios derived from simulation are found to agree very well with the values derived from experiment. In order to identify sensitivity of the structural properties several parameters such as material properties, different model scale and different hub geometries are numerically investigated. In its second part, a harmonic response analysis is shown for a Francis runner by applying the time dependent pressure distribution resulting from an unsteady CFD simulation to the mechanical structure. Thus, the data gained by modern CFD simulation are being fully utilized for the structural design based on life time analysis. With this new approach a more precise prediction of turbine loading and its effect on turbine life cycle is possible allowing better turbine designs to be developed.

• 한국유체기계학회 논문집
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• 제18권5호
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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.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• 제8권3호
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• pp.155-168
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• 2015

No-load speed is an important performance factor for the safe operation of hydropower systems. In turbine design, the manufacturers must conduct several model tests to calculate the accurate value of no-load speed for the complete range of operating conditions, which are expensive and time-consuming. The present study presents steady and unsteady methods for calculating no-load speed of a Francis turbine. The steady simulations are implemented using a commercial flow solver and an iterative algorithm that relies on a smooth relation between turbine torque and speed factor. The unsteady method uses unsteady RANS simulations that have been integrated with a user subroutine to compute and return the value of runner speed, time step and friction torque. The main goal of this research is to evaluate and compare the two methods by calculating turbine dynamic parameters for three test cases consisting of high and medium head Francis turbines. Overall, the numerical results agreed well with experimental data. The unsteady method provided more accurate results in the opening angle range from 20 to 26 degrees. Nevertheless, the steady results showed more consistency than unsteady results for the three different test cases at different operating conditions.

• 한국유체기계학회 논문집
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• 제16권4호
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• pp.10-14
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• 2013

In this study, we have numerically investigated the hydraulic efficiency with various values of discharge angle($11^{\circ}$, $12^{\circ}$, $14^{\circ}$, $15^{\circ}$, $17^{\circ}$, $18^{\circ}$, $20^{\circ}$) in the Francis turbine of hydropower generation under 15MW with fixed values of head range of 151m and flow rate($10.97m^3/s$). We also conducted the numerical analysis with constant inlet angle in the Francis turbine using the commercial code, ANSYS CFX. Hydraulic characteristics for different values of the runner blade angle are investigated. The results showed that the change of discharge angles significantly influenced on the performance of the turbine hydraulic efficiency.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• 제4권1호
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• pp.179-190
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• 2011

The swirling flow developing in Francis turbine draft tube under part load operation leads to pressure fluctuations usually in the range of 0.2 to 0.4 times the runner rotational frequency resulting from the so-called vortex breakdown. For low cavitation number, the flow features a cavitation vortex rope animated with precession motion. Under given conditions, these pressure fluctuations may lead to undesirable pressure fluctuations in the entire hydraulic system and also produce active power oscillations. For the upper part load range, between 0.7 and 0.85 times the best efficiency discharge, pressure fluctuations may appear in a higher frequency range of 2 to 4 times the runner rotational speed and feature modulations with vortex rope precession. It has been pointed out that for this particular operating point, the vortex rope features elliptical cross section and is animated of a self-rotation. This paper presents an experimental investigation focusing on this peculiar phenomenon, defined as the upper part load vortex rope. The experimental investigation is carried out on a high specific speed Francis turbine scale model installed on a test rig of the EPFL Laboratory for Hydraulic Machines. The selected operating point corresponds to a discharge of 0.83 times the best efficiency discharge. Observations of the cavitation vortex carried out with high speed camera have been recorded and synchronized with pressure fluctuations measurements at the draft tube cone. First, the vortex rope self rotation frequency is evidenced and the related frequency is deduced. Then, the influence of the sigma cavitation number on vortex rope shape and pressure fluctuations is presented. The waterfall diagram of the pressure fluctuations evidences resonance effects with the hydraulic circuit. The influence of outlet bubble cavitation and air injection is also investigated for low cavitation number. The time evolution of the vortex rope volume is compared with pressure fluctuations time evolution using image processing. Finally, the influence of the Froude number on the vortex rope shape and the associated pressure fluctuations is analyzed by varying the rotational speed.