The good performance of a vortex shedder is defined by strong and stable vortex generated under the condition of most linearity in Strouhal number and low power loss. In this paper, the flow past a bluff body of circular cylinder with a slit normal to the flow has been analyzed focusing on drag coefficient, linearity of Strouhal number and flow resistance (K-factor). The ANSYS/FLUENT package is used for flow simulation and the integration method of computational code to iSIGHT platform is employed for automated design cycle. This study results the design with (0.20~0.267) blockage ratio and 0.10 slit ratio as the best shedder for vortex flowmeter and this results are in well agreement with the experiment. As the combination of GAMBIT, FLUENT, and iSIGHT substitutes the design parameters automatically according to the input data, this method designs effectively the vortex shedder with less design cycle time and low manufacturing cost eliminating the human intervention bottleneck.

抄録全体を表示

This paper presents a CFD-based methodology for the prediction of guide vane torque in hydraulic turbine distributor for aligned and misaligned configurations. A misaligned or desynchronized configuration occurs when the opening angle of one guide vane differs from the opening angle of all other guide vanes, which may lead to a torque increase on neighbouring guide vanes. A fully automated numerical procedure is presented, that automates computations for a complete range of operation of a 2D or 3D distributor. Results are validated against laboratory measurements.

抄録全体を表示

Nowadays, computational fluid dynamics is commonly used by design engineers to evaluate and compare losses in hydraulic components as it is less expensive and less time consuming than model tests. For that purpose, an automatic tool for casing and distributor analysis will be presented in this paper. An in-house mesh generator and a Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes equation solver using the standard k-ω shear stress transport (SST) turbulence model will be used to perform all computations. Two solvers based on the C++ OpenFOAM library will be used and compared to a commercial solver. The performance of the new fully coupled block solver developed by the University of Lucerne and Andritz will be compared to the standard 1.6ext segregated simpleFoam solver and to a commercial solver. In this study, relative comparisons of different geometries of casing and distributor will be performed. The present study is thus aimed at validating the block solver and the tool chain and providing design engineers with a faster and more reliable analysis tool that can be integrated into their design process.

抄録全体を表示

No-load speed is an important performance factor for the safe operation of hydropower systems. In turbine design, the manufacturers must conduct several model tests to calculate the accurate value of no-load speed for the complete range of operating conditions, which are expensive and time-consuming. The present study presents steady and unsteady methods for calculating no-load speed of a Francis turbine. The steady simulations are implemented using a commercial flow solver and an iterative algorithm that relies on a smooth relation between turbine torque and speed factor. The unsteady method uses unsteady RANS simulations that have been integrated with a user subroutine to retrieve the runner speed, time step and friction torque. The main goal of this research is to evaluate and compare the two methods by calculating turbine dynamic parameters for three test cases consisting of high and medium head Francis turbines. Overall, the numerical results agreed well with experimental data. The unsteady method provided more accurate results in the opening angle range from 20 to 26 degrees. Nevertheless, the steady results showed more consistency than unsteady results for the three different test cases at different operating conditions.

抄録全体を表示

When simulating the dynamic behaviour of a hydro power plant, it is essential to have a good representation of the turbine behaviour. The pressure transients in the system occurs because the flow changes, which the turbine defines. The flow through the turbine is a function of the pressure, the speed of rotation and the wicket gate opening and is, most often described in a performance diagram or Hill diagram. In the Hill diagram, the efficiency is drawn like contour lines, hence the name. A turbines Hill diagram is obtained by performance tests on scaled model in a laboratory. However, system dynamic simulations have to be performed in the early stage of a project, before the turbine manufacturer has been chosen and the Hill diagram is known. Therefore one have to rely on diagrams for a turbine with similar speed number. The Hill diagram is drawn through measured points, so for using the diagram in a simulation program, one have to iterate in the diagram based on curve fitting of the measured points. This paper describes an alternative method. By means of the Euler turbine equation, it is possible to set up two differential equations which represents the turbine performance with good enough accuracy for the dynamic simulations. The only input is the turbine’s main geometry, the runner blade in- and outlet angle and the guide vane angle at best efficiency point of operation (BEP). In the paper, simulated turbine characteristics for a high head Francis turbine, and for a reversible pump turbine are compared with laboratory measured characteristics.

抄録全体を表示

The aim of this study was comparative analysis of sediment-induced erosion on optimized design and traditional design of Francis runner blade. The analysis was conducted through laboratory experiments in a test rig called Rotating Disc Apparatus. The results showed that the extent of erosion was significantly less in the optimized design when compared based on the material loss. It was observed that the optimized design could reduce sediment erosion by about 14.4% if it was used in place of the reference design for entire duration of the experiment. Based on the observations and results obtained, it has been concluded that the optimization of hydraulic design of blade profile of Francis runner can significantly reduce the effect of sediment-induced erosion.

抄録全体を表示

This paper deals with the influence of leakage flow existing in SHF pump model on the analysis of internal flow behaviour inside the vane diffuser of the pump model performance using both experiments and calculations. PIV measurements have been performed at different hub to shroud planes inside one diffuser channel passage for a given speed of rotation and various flow rates. For each operating condition, the PIV measurements have been trigged with different angular impeller positions. The performances and the static pressure rise of the diffuser were also measured using a three-hole probe. The numerical simulations were carried out with Star CCM+ 9.06 code (RANS frozen and unsteady calculations). Some results were already presented at the XXth IAHR Symposium for three flowrates for RANS frozen and URANS calculations. In the present paper, comparisons between URANS calculations with and without leakages and experimental results are presented and discussed for these flow rates. The performances of the diffuser obtained by numerical calculations are compared to those obtained by the three-holes probe measurements. The comparisons show the influence of fluid leakages on global performances and a real improvement concerning the efficiency of the diffuser, the pump and the velocity distributions. These results show that leakage is an important parameter that has to be taken into account in order to make improved comparisons between numerical approaches and experiments in such a specific model set up.

抄録全体を表示

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.

抄録全体を表示

A robust multi-fidelity optimization methodology has been developed, focusing on efficiently handling industrial runner design of hydraulic Francis turbines. The computational task is split between low- and high-fidelity phases in order to properly balance the CFD cost and required accuracy in different design stages. In the low-fidelity phase, a physics-based surrogate optimization loop manages a large number of iterative optimization evaluations. Two derivative-free optimization methods use an inviscid flow solver as a physics-based surrogate to obtain the main characteristics of a good design in a relatively fast iterative process. The case study of a runner design for a low-head Francis turbine indicates advantages of integrating two derivative-free optimization algorithms with different local- and global search capabilities.

抄録全体を表示

An error has been found in the footnote in page 202.

抄録全体を表示