• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.33-48
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• 2013

If large pressure fluctuation is observed in the draft tube of a Francis turbine at part-load operation, we have generally called it draft-tube-surge. As occurrence of this phenomenon seriously affects the limit of turbine operating range, extensive studies on the surge have been made since proposal of surge-frequency criterion given by Rheingans. According to the literature survey of related topics in recent IAHR symposiums on hydraulic machinery and systems, in which state-of-the-art contributions were mainly presented, a certain review of them may be desirable for an outlook on the future studies in this research field. Thus, in this review paper, the authors' previous attempts for the last three decades to challenge the following topics: a rational method for component test of a draft tube, nature of spiral vortex rope and its behavior in a draft tube and cavitation characteristics of pressure fluctuations, are introduced together with other related contributions, expecting that more useful and significant studies will be accomplished in the future.

• 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.

• Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry
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• v.68
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• pp.274-281
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• 2018

Experimental studies of the hydrodynamic performance of the draft tube conical spout-fluid bed (DCSF) were conducted using pharmaceutical pellets. The experiments were carried out in a DCSF consisted of two sections: (a) a conical section with the cross section of $120mm{\times}250mm$ and the height of 270 mm, (b) a cylindrical section with the diameter of 250 mm and the height of 600 mm. The flow characteristics of solids were investigated with a high speed camera and a pezoresistive absolute pressure transducer simultaneously. These characteristics revealed different flow regimes in the DCSF: packed bed at low gas velocities, fluidized bed in draft tube at higher gas velocities until minimum spouting, and spouted bed. The stable spouting was identified by the presence of two dominant frequencies of the power spectrum density of pressure fluctuation signature: (i) the frequency band 6-9 Hz and (ii) the frequency band 12-15 Hz. The pressure drops across the draft tube as well as the annulus measured in order to better recognize the flow structure in the DCSF. It was observed that the pressure drop across the draft tube, the pressure drop across the annulus, and the minimum spouting velocity increase with the increase in the height of draft tube and distance of the entrainment zone, but with the decrease in the distributor hole pitch. Finally, this study provided novel insight into the hydrodynamic of DCSF, particularly minimum spouting and stable spouting in the DCSF which contains valuable information for process design and scale-up of spouted bed equipment.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.202-208
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• 2015

For a prototype turbine operating under part load conditions, the turbine output is fluctuating strongly, leading to the power station incapable of connecting to the grid. The field test of the prototype turbine shows that the main reason is the resonance between the draft tube vortex frequency and the generator natural vibration frequency. In order to reduce the fluctuation of power output, different measures including the air admission, water admission and adding flow deflectors in the draft tube are put forward. CFD method is adopted to simulate the three-dimensional unsteady flow in the Francis turbine, to calculate pressure fluctuations in draft tube under three schemes and to compare with the field test result of the prototype turbine. Calculation results show that all the three measures can reduce the pressure pulsation amplitude in the draft tube. The method of water supply and adding flow deflector both can effectively change the frequency and avoid resonance, thus solving the output fluctuation problem. However, the method of air admission could not change the pressure fluctuation frequency.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.283-293
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• 2015

The effect of the inlet swirling flow in a hydraulic turbine draft tube is a very complex phenomenon, which has been extensively investigated both theoretically and experimentally. In fact, the finding of the optimal flow distribution at the draft tube inlet in order to get the best performance has remained a challenge. Thus, attempting to answer this question, it was assumed that through an automatic optimization process a Genetic Algorithm would be able to manage a parameterized inlet velocity profile in order to achieve the best flow field for a particular draft tube. As a result of the optimization process, it was possible to obtain different draft-tube flow structures generated by the automatic manipulation of parameterized inlet velocity profiles. Thus, this work develops a qualitative and quantitative analysis of these new draft tube flow field structures provoked by the redesigned inlet velocity profiles. The comparisons among the different flow fields obtained clearly illustrate the importance of the flow uniformity at the end of the conduit. Another important aspect has been the elimination of the re-circulating flow area which used to promote an adverse pressure gradient in the cone, deteriorating the pressure recovery effect. Thanks to the evolutionary optimization strategy, it has been possible to demonstrate that the optimized inlet velocity profile can suppress or mitigate, at least numerically, the undesirable draft tube flow characteristics. Finally, since there is only a single swirl number for which the objective function has been minimized, the energy loss factor might be slightly affected by the flow rate if the same relation of the axial-tangential velocity components is maintained, which makes it possible to scale the inlet velocity field to different operating points.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.85-96
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• 2011

Steady state computations are routinely used by design engineers to evaluate and compare losses in hydraulic components. In the case of the draft tube diffuser, however, experiments have shown that while a significant number of operating conditions can adequately be evaluated using steady state computations, a few operating conditions require unsteady simulations to accurately evaluate losses. This paper presents a study that assesses the predictive capacity of a combination of steady and unsteady RANS numerical computations to predict draft tube losses over the complete range of operation of a Francis turbine. For the prediction of the draft tube performance using k-${\varepsilon}$ turbulence model, a methodology has been proposed to average global performance indicators of steady flow computations such as the pressure recovery factor over an adequate number of periods to obtain correct results. The methodology will be validated using two distinct flow solvers, CFX and OpenFOAM, and through a systematic comparison with experimental results obtained on the FLINDT model draft tube.

• 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.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.375-382
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• 2009

Hydraulic instability associated with pressure fluctuations is a serious problem in hydraulic machinery. Pressure fluctuations are usually a result of a strong vortex created in the centre of a flow at the outlet of a runner. At every radial turbine and also at every single regulating axial turbine, the draft tube vortex appears at part-load operating regimes. The consequences of the vortex developed in the draft tube are very unpleasant pressure pulsation, axial and radial forces and torque fluctuation as well as turbine structure vibration. The consequences of the vortex are transferred upstream and downstream with amplitude and frequency modulation in respect of the turbine operating regime, cavitation conditions and air admitted content. Numerical prediction of the vortex appearance in the design stage is a very important task. The amplitude of the pressure pulsation is different for each operating regime therefore the main goal of this research was to numerically predict pressure pulsation amplitude versus different guide vane openings and to compare the results with experimental ones. For the numerical flow analysis of a complete Francis turbine (FT), the computer code ANSYS-CFX11 has been used.

• 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.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.392-399
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• 2009

The paper concerns the description of the step by step development process of the new fixed blade runner called "Mixer" suitable for the uprating of the Francis turbines units installed at the older low head hydropower plants. In the paper the details of hydraulic and mechanical design are presented. Since the rotational speed of the new runner is significantly higher then the rotational speed of the original Francis one, the direct coupling of the turbine to the generator can be applied. The maximum efficiency at prescribed operational point was reached by the geometry optimization of two most important components. In the first step the optimization of the draft tube geometry was carried out. The condition for the draft tube geometry optimization was to design the new geometry of the draft tube within the original bad draft tube shape without any extensive civil works. The runner blade geometry optimization was carried out on the runner coupled with the draft tube domain. The blade geometry of the runner was optimized using automatic direct search optimization procedure. The method used for the objective function minimum search is a kind of the Nelder-Mead simplex method. The objective function concerns efficiency, required net head and cavitation features. After successful hydraulic design the modal and stress analysis was carried out on the prototype scale runner. The static pressure distribution from flow simulation was used as a load condition. The modal analysis in air and in water was carried out and the results were compared. The final runner was manufactured in model scale and it is going to be tested in hydraulic laboratory. Since the turbine with the fixed blade runner does not allow double regulation like in case of full Kaplan turbine, it can be profitably used mainly at power plants with smaller changes of operational conditions or in case with more units installed. The advantages are simple manufacturing, installation and therefore lower expenses and short delivery time for turbine uprating.