Performance Prediction of Francis Turbine by Whole Passage Flow Numerical Analysis

Abstract

At present, research and development of hydraulic turbines involves two stages: design optimization by numerical flow simulation and verifications of optimized turbine performance by model test. Since model test forms a large portion of the total development cost, significant cost reduction could be achieved if conventional performance verifications by model test are replaced by numerical simulation which can predict main performances of hydraulic turbine such as efficiency, pressure fluctuation and cavitations with high accuracy, namely numerical model test. This paper presents numerical simulation methods that can predict main performances of Francis turbine with high accuracy. Comparisons of simulation results with model test results show that numerical model test could predict main performances of turbine with high accuracy. Therefore, it can be concluded that numerical model test has potential to replace conventional model test for verification works and hence contributes to cost reduction in the development of Francis turbine.