• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.37-43
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is not only to investigate the effects of air layer in the turbine chamber on the performance and internal flow of the cross-flow turbine, but also to suggest a newly developed air supply method. Field test is performed in order to measure the output power of the turbine by a new air supply method. CFD analysis on the performance and internal flow of the turbine is conducted by an unsteady state calculation using a two-phase flow model in order to embody the air layer effect on the turbine performance effectively. The result shows that air layer effect on the performance of the turbine is considerable. The air layer located in the turbine runner passage plays the role of preventing a shock loss at the runner axis and suppressing a recirculation flow in the runner. The location of air suction hole on the chamber wall is very important factor for the performance improvement. Moreover, the ratio between air from suction pipe and water from turbine inlet is also significant factor of the turbine performance.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.12a
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• pp.819-824
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• 2005

Recently, micro hydropower attracts attention because of its clean, renewable and abundant energy resources to develop. However, suitable turbine type is not normalized yet in the range of micro hydropower and it is necessary to study for the effective turbine type. Moreover, relatively high manufacturing cost by the complex structure of the turbine is the highest barrier for developing the micro hydropower turbine. Therefore, a cross-flow turbine is proposed for micro-hydropower in this study because of its simple structure and high possibility of applying to low head. The purpose of this study is to further simplify the turbine structure and improve the performance, A guide vane is removed and the runner chamber is made compact using a new air supply method. The results show that the efficiency of the turbine is improved in a wide operating range and the size of the turbine is remarkably reduced.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.296-303
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• 2006

Recently, micro hydropower attracts attention because of its clean. renewable and abundant energy resources to develop. However, suitable turbine type is not normalized yet in the range of micro hydropower and it is necessary to study for the effective turbine type. Moreover, relatively high manufacturing cost by the complex structure of the turbine is the highest barrier for developing the micro hydropower turbine. Therefore a cross-flow turbine is proposed for micro-hydropower in this study because of its simple structure and high possibility of applying to low head. The purpose of this study Is to further optimize the turbine structure and improve the performance. A guide vane is removed and the runner chamber is made compact using a new air supply method. The results show that the efficiency of the turbine is improved in a wide operating range and the size of the turbine is remarkably reduced.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.19-26
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• 2014

The cross flow turbine attracts more and more attention for its relatively wide operating range and simple structure. In this study, a novel type of micro cross flow turbine is developed for application to a step in an irrigational channel. The head of the turbine is only H=4.3m and the turbine inlet channel is open ducted type, which has barely been studied. The efficiency of the turbine with inlet open duct channel is relatively low. Therefore, a guide nozzle on the turbine inlet is attached to improve the performance of the turbine. The guide nozzle shapes are investigated to find the best shape for the turbine. The guide nozzle plays an important role on directing flow at the runner entry, and it also decreases the negative torque loss by reducing the pressure difference in Region 1. There is 12.5% of efficiency improvement by attaching a well shaped guide nozzle on the turbine inlet.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.30-39
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• 2014

The cross flow turbine is economical because of its simple structure. For remote rural region, there are needs for a more simple structure and very low head cross flow turbines. However, in this kind of locations, the water from upstream always flows into the turbine with some other materials such as sand and pebble. These materials will be damage to the runner blade and shorten the turbine lifespan. Therefore, there is a need to develop a new type of cross flow turbine for the remote rural region where there is availability of abundant resources. The new design of the cross flow turbine has an inlet open duct, without guide vane and nozzle to simplify the structure. However, the turbine with inlet open duct and very low head shows relatively low efficiency. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to optimize the shape of the turbine inlet to improve the efficiency, and investigate the internal flow of a very low head cross flow turbine. There are two steps to optimize the turbine inlet shape. Firstly, by changing the turbine open angle along with changing the turbine inlet open duct bottom line (IODBL) location to investigate the internal flow. Secondly, keeping the turbine IODBL location at the maximum efficiency achieved at the first step, and changing the turbine IODBL angle to improve the performance. The result shows that there is a 7.4% of efficiency improvement by optimizing turbine IODBL location (open angle), and there is 0.3% of efficiency improvement by optimizing the turbine IODBL angle.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.514-521
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• 2007

There has been considerable interest recently in the topic of renewable energy. This is primarily due to concerns about environmental impacts. Moreover, fluctuating and rising oil prices, increases in demand, supply uncertainties and other factors have led to increased calls for alternative energy sources. Small hydropower, especially using water supply system, attracts high attentions because of relatively lower cost and smaller space requirements to construct the plant. Moreover. newly developed positive displacement turbine has high acceptability for the system. Therefore, the purpose of this study is focused on the examination of the performance characteristics and proposition of a optimum design method of the turbine for the improvement of the performance. The results show that newly proposed optimum design method for the turbine has high accuracy of performance prediction and good applicability for the performance improvement of the turbine.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.325-330
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• 2011

A rotor overlap technique was adapted to improve the performance of a axial turbine. The technique secured sufficient flow passage by additional height at the rotor tip and hub. especially in a supersonic turbine, the technique reduced the chance of chocking in the rotor passage, and made to be satisfied the design pressure ratio. However, the technique also made additional losses, like a pumping loss, expansion loss, etc. Therefore, a optimization technique was appled to maximize the improvement of the turbine performance. An approximate optimization method was used for the investigation to secure the computational efficiency. The design variables was shape factors of a rotor overlap. Results indicated that a significant improvement in turbine performance can be achieved through the optimization of the rotor overlap.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.698-706
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• 2008

Performance improvement of Small hydro turbine is a very important subject to solve in the stage of introduction and development of the turbine. Cross-flow hydro turbine should be also studied more in detail for the turbine performance in order to extend the sites of application. In order to improve the turbine performance, the effect of the turbine shape on the turbine performance should be examined. Therefore, the effect of runner blade number on the turbine performance is investigated by use of a commercial CFD code. The results show that runner blade number gives remarkable effect on the efficiency and output power of the turbine. Pressure on the surface of the runner blade changes considerably by the blade number at Stage 1, but relatively small change of velocity distribution occurs in the flow passage.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2009.07a
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• pp.1070_1071
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• 2009

Recently, small hydropower attracts attention because of its clean, renewable and abundant energy resources to develop. Therefore, a cross-flow hydraulic turbine is proposed for small hydropower development in this study. The turbine‘s simple structure and high possibility of applying to the sites of relatively low effective head and large flow rate can be advantages for the introduction of the small hydropower development. The purpose of this study is not only to investigate the effects of air layer in the turbine chamber on the performance and internal flow of the cross-flow turbine, but also to suggest a newly developed air supply method. CFD analysis for the performance and internal flow of the turbine is conducted by an unsteady state calculation using a two-phase flow model in order to embody the air layer effect on the turbine performance effectively. The result shows that air layer effect on the performance of the turbine is considerable. The air layer located in the turbine runner passage plays the role of preventing a shock loss in the runner axis and suppressing a recirculation flow in the runner. The location of air suction hole on the chamber wall is very important factor for the performance improvement. Moreover, the ratio between air from suction pipe and water from turbine inlet is also significant factor of the turbine performance.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.19-28
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• 2011

As a preview study, present research analysed the performance characteristics of a velocity compound supersonic impulse turbine with the rotor overlaps before adapting the overlap has the best turbine performance. This research was conducted for the turbine with square cross-section nozzles instead of axisymmetric nozzles and wrap around nozzles. Through 3-dimensional flow analysis for the turbine by a commercial flow analysis package, tip overlap case was more effective to improve the turbine performance than case hub overlap, and overlap case applied the hub and tip of the rotor had the largest improvement for the turbine performance in the cases. In case of overlap for the 2nd stage rotor, improvement of the turbine performance was not visibly large. Because, generated power in the 2nd stage is 22~23% of whole generated turbine power.