Steady-state Capabilities for Hydroturbines with OpenFOAM

Abstract

The availability of a high quality open source CFD simulation platform like OpenFOAM offers new R&D opportunities by providing direct access to models and solver implementation details. Efforts have been made by Hydro-Québec to adapt OpenFOAM to hydroturbines for the development of steady-state capabilities. This paper describes the developments that have been made to implement new turbomachinery related capabilities: multiple frames of reference solver, domain coupling interfaces (GGI, cyclicGGI and mixing plane) and specialized boundary conditions. Practical use of the new turbomachinery capabilities are demonstrated for the analysis of a 195-MW Francis turbine.