Abstract
This paper presents the experimental investigation on the cross-flow water turbine for utilizing water power generation in open channel flow. The water turbine without using headrace pipe is proposed for taking the application to the free flows in the existing water-use facilities into account. Therefore, the turbine system which consists of a runner and small intake casings is able to become much smaller than the conventional one. The turbine performance tests were carried out on two forms of the runner setting where the runner is lying or standing on the channel bed. The generating power, the water elevation and the turbine efficiency were examined to understand the relationship between the turbine performance and the flow feature. It was found that the lying turbine generates high power in a low number range of rotations where the turbine makes a large elevation of upstream water level into large effective head. In contrast, the standing turbine works well in a high number range of rotations with large effective head. The maximum efficiency of the present cross-flow turbines is nearly as large as that of the current water wheel which is widely used for open channel flows.
