• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.8 no.3
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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.

• 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.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.57 no.9
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• pp.1491-1499
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• 2008

This paper presents a study on reliability evaluation of a power system considering wind turbine generators (WTG) with multi-state. Renewable energy resources such as wind, wave, solar, micro hydro, tidal and biomass etc. are becoming importance stage by stage because of considering effect of the environment. Wind energy is one of the most successful sources of renewable energy for the production of electrical energy. But, reliability evaluation of generating system with wind energy resources is a complex process. While the wind turbine generators can not modelled as two-state model as like as conventional generators, they should be modelled as multi-state model due to wind speed random variation. The methodology for obtaining reliability evaluation index of wind turbine generators is different from it of the conventional generators. A method for making outage capacity probability table of WTG for reliability is proposed in this paper. The detail process is presented using case study of simple system.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.230-239
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• 2015

The swirling flow in the draft tube of a Francis turbine can cause the flow instability and the cavitation surge and has a larger influence on hydraulic power operating system. In this paper, the cavitating flow with swirling flow in the diffuser was studied by the draft tube component experiment, the model Francis turbine experiment and the numerical simulation. In the component experiment, several types of fluctuations were observed, including the cavitation surge and the vortex rope behaviour by the swirling flow. While the cavitation surge and the vortex rope behaviour were suppressed by the aeration into the diffuser, the loss coefficient in the diffuser increased by the aeration. In the model turbine test the aeration decreased the efficiency of the model turbine by several percent. In the numerical simulation, the cavitating flow was studied using Scale-Adaptive Simulation (SAS) with particular emphasis on understanding the unsteady characteristics of the vortex rope structure. The generation and evolution of the vortex rope structures have been investigated throughout the diffuser using the iso-surface of vapor volume fraction. The pressure fluctuation in the diffuser by numerical simulation confirmed the cavitation surge observed in the experiment. Finally, this pressure fluctuation of the cavitation surge was examined and interpreted by CFD.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.45-56
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• 2015

This paper aims to develop a submerged propeller turbine for micro hydropower plant which allows to sustain high values of efficiency in a broad range of hydrological conditions (H=2~6 m, $Q=0.15{\sim}0.39m^3/s$). The two aspects to be considered in this development are mechanical simplicity and high-efficiency operation. Unlike conventional turbines that have spiral casing and gear box, this is directing driving and no spiral casing. A 10 kW class turbine which has the most high potential of the power generation has been developed. The most important element in the design of turbine is the runner blade. The initial blade is designed using inverse design method and then the runner geometry is modified by classical hydraulic method. The design process is carried out in two steps. First, the blade shape is fix and then other components of submerged propeller turbine are designed. Computational fluid dynamics analyses based on the Navier-Stokes equations have been used to obtain overall performance data for the blade and the full turbine, respectively. The results generated by performance parameters(head, guide vane opening angle and rotational speed) variations are theoretically analysed. The evaluation criteria for the blade and the turbine performances are the pressure distribution and flow's behavior on the runner blades and turbine. The results of simulation reveals an efficiency of 91.5% and power generation of 10.5kW at the best efficiency point at the head of 4m and a discharge of $0.3m^3/s$.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.107-119
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• 2021

The cross-flow turbine is one of the most famous and widely used hydraulic power systems for a long time. The cross-flow turbine is especially popular in many countries and remote regions where off-grided because of its many benefits such as low cost, high efficiency at low head, simple structure, and easy maintenance. However, most modern turbines, including the cross-flow turbine, are unsuitable for the ultra-low head situation, known as less than 3m water head or zero head with over 0.5m/s flow velocity. In this study, we demonstrated a 20kW class inverted-type cross-flow turbine's performance. First, we reevaluated our previous studies and introduced how to design the inverted-type cross-flow turbine. Secondly, we fabricated the 20kW class inverted-type cross-flow turbine for the performance test. And then, we designed a testbed and installed the turbine system in the demonstration facility. In the end, we compare the demonstration with its previous CFD results. The comparing result shows that both CFD and real model fitted on guide vane angle at 10 degrees. At the demonstration, we achieved 42% turbine efficiency at runner speed 125 RPM.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.314-319
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• 2006

In this paper, the friction and wear characteristics of contact type sealing unit far a water turbine have been presented. The sealing unit for a small hydropower generation is to stop a leakage of circulating water from an outside of an impeller to an inside of a rolling bearing. The friction heating between a seal ring and a seal seat may radically increase a surface temperature in which increase a power loss and wear on the rubbing surface. The surface wear strongly affect to the seal life of a mechanical face seal. In this study, the hardness of a stainless steel in which is a heat-treated is 892.8 in Victors hardness and the hardness of silicone carbide of SiC is 714.1 in Victors hardness. The surface hardness of a heat-treated stainless steel is 25% high compared with that of a ceramic material of SiC. The contact modes of rubbing surfaces are a dry friction, a water film friction and a mixed friction that is contaminated by a dust, silt, and moistures, etc. These two factors of a contact rubbing modes and a material property are very important parameters on the tribological performance such as a friction and wear between a seal ring and a seal seat in primary sealing unit. The experimental result shows that the surface hardness of a seal material is very important on the friction coefficient and a wear volume. Thus, the results recommend higher hardness of a seal material, which may reduce a friction loss and increase a wear life of primary seal components.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2017

A series of coupled time domain simulations considering stochastic waves and wind based on five 1-h time-domain analyses are performed in normal operating conditions. Power performance and tower base Fore-Aft bending moment and pitching motion response of the floating spar-buoy wind turbine with 2 MW direct-drive PMSG have been analyzed by using HAWC2 that account for aero-hydro-servo-elastic time domain simulations. When the floating spar-buoy wind turbine is tilted in the wind direction, maximum of platform pitching motion is close to $4^{\circ}$. Statistical characteristics of tower base Fore-Aft bending moment of floating spar-buoy wind turbine are compared to that of land-based wind turbine. Maximum of tower base Fore-Aft bending moment of floating spar-buoy wind turbine and land-based wind is 94,448 kNm, 40,560 kNm respectively. This results is due to changes in blade pitch angle resulting from relative motion between wave and movement of the floating spar-buoy wind turbine.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.23 no.10
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• pp.895-901
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• 2013

Last blades of LP turbine in nuclear power plant are the highly damaged part and suffered from nozzle steam impulses during the turbine operation. Nozzle impulse is known as a common cause of damage or failure in the turbine blade and results from steam flow distortions due to uneven steam flow patterns between the stationary blade vanes. If impulse force was continuously acting on the blade for a long time, crack or wear will occur in weak parts such as root. So, it is important to know variation of nozzle impulse during the blade moving. But there is no way to measure and estimate the magnitude and direction of nozzle impulse. Therefore, this study was performed to know the variation of nozzle impulse force according to the positions of the blade and to obtain blade equivalent force and torque. This results can be used for blade stress estimation.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.27-32
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• 2010

Low Calorific Gas Turbine (LCGT) has been developed as a next generation power system using landfill gas (LFG) and biogas made from various organic wastes, food Waste, waste water and Livestock biogas. Low calorific fuel purification by pretreatment system and carbon dioxide fixation by green house system are very important design target for the optimum applications of LCGT. Main troubles of Low Calorific Gas Turbine system was derived from the impurities such as hydro sulfide, siloxane, water contained in biogas. Even if the quality of the bio fuel is not better than natural gas, LCGT may take low quality gas fuel and environmental friendly power system. The mechanical characterisitics of LCGT system is a high energy efficiency (>70%), wide range of output power (30 kW - 30 MW class) and very clean emission from power system (low NOx). A green house has been designed for four different carbon dioxide concentration from ambient air to 2000 ppm by utilizing the exhaust gas and hot water from LCGT system. LCGT is expected to contribute achieving the target of Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS).