• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.47-56
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• 2011

Our previous experimental and numerical investigations of decelerated swirling flows in conical diffusers have demonstrated that water jet injection along the symmetry axis mitigates the pressure fluctuations associated with the precessing vortex rope. However, for swirling flows similar to Francis turbines operated at partial discharge, the jet becomes effective when the jet discharge is larger than 10% from the turbine discharge, leading to large volumetric losses when the jet is supplied from upstream the runner. As a result, we introduce the flow-feedback approach for supplying the jet by using a fraction of the discharge collected downstream the conical diffuser. Experimental investigations on mitigating the pressure fluctuations generated by the precessing vortex rope and investigations of pressure recovery coefficient on the cone wall with and without flow-feedback method are presented.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.121-129
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• 2020

This paper described a laboratory investigation of micro hydropower at lower head water in a free vortex flow. The vortex height, turbine rotation and torque for straight blade with inner curved edge, twisted blade and curved blade were investigated at the flow rate of 0.0069 ㎥/s in the inlet channel. The results showed that the optimum vortex strength occurred within the range of the diameter of basin to the outlet diameter ratios of 0.17~18.5. The power output and efficiency of straight blade were higher as compared to other blades. The highest amount of generated energy was 12.33 W, the torque was 0.91 N·m and the highest efficiency by considering effective head was 29.5 %, whereas the highest efficiency by considering vortex height was 80.5 % at the rotational speed of 132 rpm. The water vortex velocity of straight blade was about 2.8 times larger than the mean velocity in the inlet channel.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.165.2-165.2
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• 2011

Flow with suction to water turbine must be in stable state at small hydraulic power plant. But because of water level fluctuation and water gate effect according to irregular supply of cooling water, it would happen to produce bubble and vortex and finally lead to problems in power-plant system. With utilizing the concept design of double size gate, surface water overflowed the overhead of gate for stable flow at suction. We developed the overflow condition and analyzed the design factor with existed one such as water level(overflow amount) and overhead of water gate(overflow figure). Flow test and CFD simulation say that flow have stable state around suction and 20% of wave reduction effect at surface layer after surface water overflow.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.62.1-62.1
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• 2011

The wind can be stronger and steadier further from shore, but water depth is also deeper. Then bottom-mounted towers are not feasible, and floating turbines are more competitive. There are additional motions in an offshore floating wind turbine, which results in a more complex aerodynamics operating environment for the turbine rotor. Many aerodynamic analysis methods rely on blade element momentum theory to investigate aerodynamic load, which are not valid in vortex ring state that occurs in floating wind turbine operations. So, vortex lattice method, which is more physical, was used in this analysis. Floating platform's prescribed positions were calculated in the time domain by using floating system RAO and waves that are simulated using JONSWAP spectrum. The average value of in-plane aerodynamic force increase, but the value of out-of-plane force decrease. The maximum variation aerodynamic force abruptly increases in severe sea state. Especially, as the pitch motion of the barge platform is large, this motion should be avoided to decrease the aerodynamic load variation.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.197-204
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• 2018

In the present study, unsteady flow analysis has been conducted to investigate the blade forces and wake flow around a hybrid street-lamp having a vertical-axis small wind turbine and a photovoltaic panel. Uniform velocities of 3, 5 and 7 m/s are applied as inlet boundary condition. Relatively large vortex shedding is formed at the wake region of the photovoltaic panel, which affects the increase of blade torque and wake flow downstream of the wind turbine. It is found that blade force has a good relation to the variation of the angle of attack with the rotation of turbine blades. Variations in the torque on the turbine blade over time create a cyclic fluctuation, which can be a source of turbine vibration and noise. Unsteady fluctuation of blade forces is also analyzed to understand the nature of the vibration of a small wind turbine over time. The detailed flow field inside the turbine blades is analyzed and discussed.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.182-193
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• 2016

Introduction of intermittent electricity production systems like wind and solar power to electricity market together with the deregulation of electricity markets resulted in numerous start/stops, load variations and off-design operation of water turbines. Hydraulic turbines suffer from the varying loads exerted on their stationary and rotating parts during load variations since they are not designed for such operating conditions. Investigations on part load operation of single regulated turbines, i.e., Francis and propeller, proved the formation of a rotating vortex rope (RVR) in the draft tube. The RVR induces pressure pulsations in the axial and rotating directions called plunging and rotating modes, respectively. This results in oscillating forces with two different frequencies on the runner blades, bearings and other rotating parts of the turbine. This study investigates the effect of transient operations on the pressure fluctuations exerted on the runner and mechanism of the RVR formation/mitigation. Draft tube and runner blades of the Porjus U9 model, a Kaplan turbine, were equipped with pressure sensors for this purpose. The model was run in off-cam mode during different load variations. The results showed that the transients between the best efficiency point and the high load occurs in a smooth way. However, during transitions to the part load a RVR forms in the draft tube which induces high level of fluctuations with two frequencies on the runner; plunging and rotating mode. Formation of the RVR during the load rejections coincides with sudden pressure change on the runner while its mitigation occurs in a smooth way.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.13-18
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• 2009

In this paper, it is intended to figure out the features and causes of the processes of creation, growth and disappearance of spiral-vortex-flow generated in Francis turbines generally. The spiral-vortex-flow generated in draft tubes of the Francis turbines is estimated to have negative effects on power plant structure and to the people inside the building as well as to lead to a low-frequency-vibration driven by sub-synchronous whirl vibration. Therefore, we intend to investigate how much the low-frequency-vibration has an influence upon the powerhouse structure and practice analyzing the effectiveness on the previously-introduced methods to reduce side-effects of sub-synchronous whirl vibration and finally we intend to show the optimal solutions through this paper.

• 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.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.287-295
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• 2017

The most detrimental pressure pulsations in high-head pump-turbines is caused by the rotor-stator interaction (RSI) between the guide vanes and runner blades. When the pump-turbine operates in the S-shaped region of the characteristic curves, the deteriorative flow structures may significantly strengthen RSI, causing larger pressure pulsations and stronger vibration with an increased risk of mechanical failure. CFD simulations were carried out to analyze the impacts of flow evolution on the pressure pulsations in the S-shaped region of a model pump-turbine. The results show that the reverse flow vortex structures (RFVS) at the runner inlet have regular development and transition patterns when discharge reduces from the best efficiency point (BEP). The RFVS first occur at the hub side, and then shift to the mid-span near the no-load point, which cause the strongest pressure pulsations. The locally distributed RFVS at hub side enhance the local RSI and makes the pressure fluctuations at the corresponding sections stronger than those at the rest sections along the spanwise direction. Under the condition of RFVS at the mid-span, the smaller flow rate make the smaller difference of pressure pulsation amplitudes in the spanwise direction. Moreover, the rotating stall, rotating at 35.7%-62.5% of the runner rotational frequency, make the low frequency components of pressure pulsations distribute unevenly along the circumference in the vaneless space. However, it have little influence on the distributions of high components.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.154-164
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• 2019

A rotor dynamic analysis is mandatory for stability and design optimization of submerged propellers and turbines. An accurate simulation requires a proper consideration of fluid-induced reaction forces. This paper presents a bi-directional coupling of a bond graph method solver and an unsteady vortex lattice method solver where the former is used to model the rotor dynamics of the power train and the latter is used to predict transient hydrodynamic forces. Due to solver coupling, determination of hydrodynamic coefficients is obsolete and added mass effects are considered automatically. Additionally, power grid and structural faults like grid fluctuations, eccentricity or failure could be investigated using the same model. In this research work a fast, time resolved dynamic simulation of the complete power train is conducted. As an example, the rotor dynamics of a tidal stream turbine is investigated under two inflow conditions: I - shear flow, II - shear flow + water waves.