• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2000.11a
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• pp.612-617
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• 2000

This paper describes the experience gained from the treatments for prevention of blade failure occurred in the low-pressure turbine. Some cracks due to high cycle fatigue were found at the blades in low-pressure turbines after long time operation. Such failure was mainly caused by the resonance of the blade with the vane passing frequency excitation. If a natural frequency of the blade exists near the excitation frequency, a resonant vibration can occur and leads to a large amount of stress which may cause fatigue failures in turbine blades. To avoid the resonance of the blade, some modifications have been performed and full-scaled mockup testing has been done to confirm the verification for modification. Test result shows that enlarging the span cover is very useful to change the natural frequency of the grouped blades effectively.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.39 no.10
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• pp.1017-1022
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• 2015

Specific hydrodynamic characteristic of pump-turbine during the start and load rejection process of generating mode causes anomalous increase of water pressure, along with large machine vibration, called "S" characteristic. The aim of this study is to understand and explain the hydrodynamic performance of pump-turbine at "S" characteristic region by using a model of pump-turbine system. The operation in the condition of runway and low discharge in a typical "S" characteristic curve may become unstable and complex flow appears at the passage of guide vane and impeller. Therefore, velocity and pressure distribution are investigated to give an all-sided explanation of the formation and phenomenon of this characteristic, with the assistance of velocity triangle analysis at the impeller inlet. From this study, the internal flow and pressure fluctuation at the normal, runway and low discharge points are explored, giving a deep description of hydrodynamic characteristic when the pump-turbine system operates with "S" characteristic.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06d
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• pp.771-776
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• 2001

By matching a well established fast throughflow code, with standard loss correlations, and an efficient optimization algorithm, a new design system has been developed, which optimizes inlet and exit flow-field parameters for each blade row of a multistage axial flow turbine. The compressible steady state inviscid throughflow code based on streamline curvature method is suitable for fast and accurate flow calculation and performance prediction of a multistage axial flow turbine. A general purpose hybrid constrained optimization package, iSIGHT has been used, which includes the following modules: genetic algorithm, simulated annealing, modified method of feasible directions. The design system has been demonstrated using an example of a 5-stage low pressure steam turbine for 800MW thermal power plant previously designed by HANJUNG. The comparison of computed performance of initial and optimized design shows significant improvement in the turbine efficiency.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2014.10a
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• pp.431-434
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• 2014

Wind turbine industry is the most developing field among other renewable energy industry. As expanding wind farms, noise is the big problem to solve. This study is about wind turbine noise measuring method based on IEC 61400-11. Sound pressure levels, 1/3-octave band levels, and low frequency sound pressure levels of a 3 MW wind turbine were measured and analyzed.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.20-28
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• 2015

The pump-turbine impeller is the key component of pumped storage power plant. Current design methods of pump-turbine impeller are private and protected from public viewing. Generally, the design proceeds in two steps: the initial hydraulic design and optimization design to achieve a balanced performance between pump mode and turbine mode. In this study, the 3D inverse design method is used for the initial hydraulic impeller design. However, due to the special demand of high performance in both pump and reverse mode, the design method is insufficient. This study is carried out by modifying the geometrical parameters of the blade which have great influence and need special consideration in obtaining the high performance on the both modes, such as blade shape type at low pressure side (inlet of pump mode, outlet of turbine mode) and the blade lean at blade high pressure side (outlet of pump mode, inlet of turbine mode). The influence of the geometrical parameters on the performance characteristic is evaluated by CFD analysis which presents the efficiency and internal flow results. After these investigations of the geometrical parameters, the criteria of designing pump-turbine impeller blade low and high sides shape is achieved.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.298-304
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• 2001

Turbine blade is subject to force of three types ; the torsional force by torsional mount, the centrifugal force by the rotation of rotor and the cyclic bending force by steam pressure. The cyclic bending force was a main factor on fatigue strength. SEM fractography in root of turbine blade showed micro-clack width was not dependent on stress intensity factor range. Especially, fatigue did not exist on SEM photograph in root of turbine blade. To clear out the fracture mechanism of turbine blade, nanofractography was needed on 3-dimensional crack initiation and crack growth with high magnification. Fatigue striation partially existed on AFM photograph in root of turbine blade. Therefore, to find a fracture mechanism of the torsion-mounted blade in nuclear power plant, the relation between stress intensity factor range and surface roughness measured by AFM was estimated, and then the load amplitude ΔP applied to turbine blade was predicted exactly by root mean square roughness.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.522-530
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• 2007

In order to extract small hydropower in the very low specific speed range of $n_s<10$, a Positive Displacement Turbine (PDT) has been proposed and steady performances have been determined experimentally. However, the suppression of large pressure fluctuation is inevitable for practical application of PDT. Therefore, present study adopted 4-lobe helical type robe to reduce the pressure fluctuation. The results show that 4-lobe helical type robe can be adopted to suppress the pressure fluctuation drastically. Moreover, efficiency and unit power of the turbine with newly proposed 4-lobe helical type lobe are higher than those of the turbine with 3-lobe straight type robe.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.9-15
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• 2014

In this study pressure and shaft torque pulsation were measured with variation of head and flow during the model test for a 15 MW Francis Turbine. Pressure pulsations were measured at the inlet of the spiral casing and 4 points in the cone of the diffuser and shaft torque pulsation at the upper position of the turbine. The maximum amplitude of pressure pulsation appeared 2.03% of the maximum rated head with the frequency of 25% of the rated revolution and at the guide vane opening of $10^{\circ}$. Shaft torque pulsation appeared 0.01% of the rated shaft torque, fairly low value. Air was admitted through the cone and pressure pulsation gradually decreased with increase of air flow and kept nearly constant after 5% of the rated flow. A new Francis turbine of which specific speed is 115 m-kW had been designed to rehabilitate the old one and the model test was performed at EPFL. The commercial code, STAR-$CCM^+$ was used for numerical simulation of flow.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.57-63
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• 2008

The last stage blade of the low pressure steam turbine remarkably affects turbine plant performance and availability Turbine manufacturers are continuously developing the low pressure last stage blades using the latest technology in order to achieve higher reliability and improved efficiency. They tend to lengthen the last stage blade and apply shrouds at the blades to enhance turbine efficiency. The long blades increase the blade tip circumferential speed and water droplet erosion at shroud is anticipated. Parts of integral shrouds of the last stage 40 inch blades were cracked and liberated recently in a combined cycle power plant. In order to analyze the root cause of the last stage blades shroud cracks, we investigated operational history, heat balance diagram, damaged blades shape, fractured surface of damaged blades, microstructure examination and design data, etc. Root causes were analyzed as the improper material and design of the blade. Notches induced by erosion and blade shroud were failed eventually by high cycle fatigue. This paper describes the root cause analysis and countermeasures for the steam turbine last stage blade shroud cracks of the combined cycle power plant.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.4 no.1
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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.