Comparative analysis of air and water flows in simplified hydraulic turbine models

This article presents a comparative analysis of flow characteristics behind a hydraulic turbine runner in air and water. Swirling flow with a precessing vortex core (PVC) was investigated using a laser Doppler anemometer and pressure pulsation sensors. The experiments were conducted on aerodynamic and hydrodynamic test rigs over a wide range of hydraulic turbine operating conditions. Part-load modes of hydraulic turbine operation were investigated using the Fourier transform of pressure pulsations obtained from acoustic sensors. The features of the swirling flow were shown for the range of operating conditions from deep partl-load to overload.

Research and Application of Neutron Detection Technology in Inspection of Void Defects in Turbine Runner Chamber

After a long-term operation of the turbine runner chamber, there may be voids between the steel lining and the concrete. If it is not discovered and treated in time, the safe and stable operation of the unit will be affected. In engineering practice, the hammering method is often used to detect hole defects, and the accuracy is low. The neutron detection technology is proposed to detect the void defects of the steel lining, quantitatively display the void location and size, and improve the accuracy of void defect detection.

Maintenance Strategies Comparison for Francis Turbine Runner Subjected to Cavitation

This paper deals with a continuously degrading turbine runner due to cavitation that is inspected at fixed time intervals. The degradation of the system is modelled with a gamma process. This paper is focused on comparing the influence of maintenance parameters with the long-time cost criterion. A case study, based on simulated degradation paths, shows that there exists a set of parameters that minimize maintenance costs.

Numerical Model on the Dynamic Behavior of a Prototype Kaplan Turbine Runner

Experimental and numerical investigations of the modal behavior of a prototype Kaplan turbine runner in air have been conducted in this paper. The widely used roving accelerometer method was used in the experimental modal analysis. A systematic approach from a single blade model to the whole runner has been used in the simulation to get a thorough understanding. The experimental results show that all the detected modes concentrate their displacements on the impacted blade. The numerical results show that the modes of the single blade form different mode families of the runner, and each mode family corresponds to a narrow frequency band. Harmonic response analysis shows that, at the response peak point, the single blade excitation can only get mode shapes with concentrations on the exciting blade due to the superposition of the close modes in each mode family, which explains the experimental results well, while the mode superposition can be avoided by the order excitation method. With the reduction of the connection stiffness between the blades and hub/control system, the frequencies of most modes change from insensitive to more and more sensitive to the connection stiffness change, which results in a sensitive area and an insensitive area. Through comparison with the experimental results, it is indicated that the natural frequencies of the runner can probably be predicted by merging the runner into a whole body.

Numerical Investigation of the Trailing Edge Shape on the Added Damping of a Kaplan Turbine Runner

Hydraulic turbine runners experience high excitation forces in their daily operations, and these excitations may cause resonances to runners, which may induce high vibrations and shorten the runner's lifetimes. Increasing the added damping of runners in water can be helpful to reduce the vibration level during resonances. Some studies have shown that the modification of the trailing edge shape can be helpful to increase added damping of hydrofoils in water. However, the influence of blade trailing edge shape on the added damping of hydraulic turbine runners has been studied in a limited way before. Due to the difficulties to study this problem experimentally, the influence of blade trailing edge shape on a Kaplan turbine runner has been studied numerically in this paper and the one-way FSI method was implemented. The performances of three different turbulence models, including the k − ϵ , k − ω SST , and transition SST models, in the added damping simulation of the NACA 0009 hydrofoil were evaluated by comparing with the available results of the two-way FSI simulation in the references. Results show that, unlike the significantly different performances in the two-way FSI method, the performances of all the turbulence models are very close in the one-way FSI method. Then, the k − ϵ turbulence model was applied to the added damping simulation of a Kaplan turbine runner, and results show that the modification of the blade trailing edge shape can be helpful to increase the added damping to some extent.