• 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.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.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2015.05a
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• pp.296-296
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• 2015

The aim of this paper is to numerically explore the feasibility of designing a Mini-Hydro turbine. The interest for this kind of horizontal axis turbine relies on its versatility. For instance, in the field of renewable energy, this kind of turbine may be considered for different applications, such as: tidal power, run-of-the-river hydroelectricity, wave energy conversion. It is fundamental to improve the turbine performance and to decrease the equipment costs for achievement of "environmental friendly" solutions and maximization of the "cost-advantage". In the present work, the commercial CFD code ANSYS is used to perform 3D simulations, solving the incompressible Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (U-RANS) equations discretized by means of a finite volume approach. The implicit segregated version of the solver is employed. The pressure-velocity coupling is achieved by means of the SIMPLE algorithm. The convective terms are discretized using a second order accurate upwind scheme, and pressure and viscous terms are discretized by a second-order-accurate centered scheme. A second order implicit time formulation is also used. Turbulence closure is provided by the realizable k - turbulence model. In this study, a mini hydro turbine (3kW) has been considered for utilization of horizontal axis impeller. The turbine performance and flow behavior have been evaluated by means of numerical simulations. Moreover, the performance of the impeller varied in the pressure distribution, torque, rotational speed and power generated by the different number of blades and angles. The model has been validated, comparing numerical results with available experimental data.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.37.1-37.1
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• 2011

A floating wind turbine dynamic simulation program, 'WindHydro', is newly developed. In order to investigate the characteristics of the program, a series of loading cases are simulated such as (1) wind only case, (2) free decay cases with initial displacement, (3) wave only case (4) wind and wave case. The simulations are carried out for the 5-MW OC3-Hywind model which has a spar buoy and catenary mooring lines. As a result, the reliability of WindHydro is verified in most viewpoints although additional study is still necessary to clear out some uncertainty of the program.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.373-380
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• 2019

In this paper, a pico hydro turbine employing low head circulation water at fish farms is designed and evaluated. Due to the advantages of simple structures, small head requirements, and low-cost investment, the constant thickness propeller turbine is considered as a feasible solution. The design process based on the free vortex method is presented in full detail, and a 4-blade runner is built using BladeGen. The turbine performance is analyzed both numerically and via experimental methods. Despite slight differences, the results show similar trends between CFD simulations and experiments carried out on factory test-rigs in a wide range of working conditions. At the design flow rate, the turbine achieves the best efficiency of 70 %, generating 3.5 kW power when rotating at 420 rpm. The internal flow field, as well as the turbine's behavior, are investigated through the distribution of blade streamlines, pressure, and velocity around the runner. Moreover, the pressure coefficient on the blade surface at 3 span positions is plotted while the head loss for each simulation domain is calculated and displayed by charts.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.5-11
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• 2014

Small hydro power, among other renewable energy resources, has been evaluated to have enough development value because it is a clean, renewable and abundant energy resource. In addition, small hydro power has the advantage of low cost development by using existing facilities like sewage treatment plants, water works and similar resources. But in the case of small hydro power systems, there are problems with degraded operation efficiency of turbine due to changes in flow rates. In order to overcome this, variable speed control can be achieved by using the power rectifier and permanent magnetic synchronous generator(PMSG) as a possible method to respond to the changes in flow rates. In this study, a commercial ANSYS CFD code was used to analyze the performance of 10kW class propeller hydro turbine and to also investigate flow characteristics at variable flow rates and runner vane.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.342-351
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• 2010

During the operation of a hydro turbine the fluid mechanical pressure loading on the turbine blades provides the driving torque on the turbine shaft. This fluid loading results in a structural load on the component which in turn causes the turbine blade to deflect. Classically, these mechanical stresses and deflections are calculated by means of finite element analysis (FEA) which applies the pressure distribution on the blade surface calculated by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) as a major boundary condition. Such an approach can be seen as a one-way coupled simulation of the fluid structure interaction (FSI) problem. In this analysis the reverse influence of the deformation on the fluid is generally neglected. Especially in axial machines the blade deformation can result in a significant impact on the turbine performance. The present paper analyzes this influence by means of fully two-way coupled FSI simulations of a propeller turbine utilizing two different approaches. The configuration has been simulated by coupling the two commercial solvers ANSYS CFX for the fluid mechanical simulation with ANSYS Classic for the structure mechanical simulation. A detailed comparison of the results for various blade stiffness by means of changing Young's Modulus are presented. The influence of the blade deformation on the runner discharge and performance will be discussed and shows for the configuration investigated no significant influence under normal structural conditions. This study also highlights that a two-way coupled fluid structure interaction simulation of a real engineering configuration is still a challenging task for today's commercially available simulation tools.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.379-382
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• 2008

The propeller type hydro turbine model with vertical axis has been tested and analized. The blade angle of runner of turbine model were designed to be varied according to the condition of head and flowrate. When the changes in head 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 model in this study will be suitable for small hydro power stations with large changes in head and load such as sewage treatment plants and agricultural reservoirs.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.334-345
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• 2009

Pumped storage power plants are playing a significant role in the contribution to the stabilization of an electrical grid, above all by stable operation and fast reaction to sudden load respectively frequency changes. Optimized efficiency and smooth running characteristics both in pump and turbine operation, improved stability for synchronization in turbine mode, load control in pump mode operation and also short reaction times may be achieved using adjustable speed power units. Such variable speed power plants are applicable for high variations of head (e.g. important for low head pump-turbine projects). Due to the rapid development of power semiconductors and frequency converter technology, feasible solutions can be provided even for large hydro power units. Suitable control strategies as well as clear design criteria contribute significantly to the optimal usage of the pump turbine and motor-generators. The SIMSEN tool for dynamic simulations has been used for comparative investigations of different configurations regarding the power converter topology, types of semiconductors and types of motor-generators including the coupling to the hydraulic system. A brief overview of the advantages & disadvantages of the different solutions can also be found in this paper. Using this approach, a customized solution minimizing cost and exploiting the maximum usage of the pump-turbine unit can be developed in the planning stage of new and modernization pump storage projects.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.119-126
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• 2006

In this paper, the contact behavior characteristics of a primary sealing components such as a seal ring and a seal seat has been presented for a small hydro-power turbine. Using the non-linear FEM analysis, the maximum temperature, the axial displacement, radial differences between a seal ring and a seal seat, and maximum contact normal stress have been analyzed for three optimized sealing profiles in which are designed based on the FEM analysis and Taguchi's experimental method. The three primary sealing profiles between a seal ring and a seal seat are strongly related to a leakage of a water for a hydro-power turbine and wear of a primary sealing component. The computed results show that the contact rubbing area between a seal ring and a seal seat is very important for reducing a friction heating and wear in a sealing gap, and increasing a contact normal stress in primary sealing components. Based on the FEM computation, models II and III in which have a small rubbing surface of seal rings show low dilatation of primary sealing components, and high normal contact stress between a seal ring and a seal seat. Thus, the FEM computed results recommend a short contacting width of a primary sealing component for reducing a leakage and thermal distortions, and expanding a seal life. This means that a conventional primary sealing component may be switched to a reduced sealing face of seal rings.