Patrick Mark Singh

Initial Hydraulic Design and Performance Analysis of 300 MW-Class Pump-turbine Model

In Korea, the performance of some pumped storage plants, which were constructed in 1980s, is unsatisfactory after long periods of operation. Redesign of the pump-turbine impeller for these plants has become necessary. Currently, the design technology of pump-turbine is monopolized by foreign companies and there’s lack of development of independent design ability in Korea. This study is an attempt to design a pump-turbine impeller that will contribute to the development of pump-turbines in Korea. The study has focused on two types of hydraulic designs. However, these are not complete designs so many assumptions have been made to complete the design process. Some important factors have been highlighted for an initial design. Additionally, actual dimensions of the pump-turbines are not publicly available. Therefore, by using a head of 350 m and flow rate of 100 ㎥/s from 300 MW-class pump-turbines, the impeller design was investigated. The first design is by selection of discharge speed constant from centrifugal pump design and the second design is by selection of gradient of discharge variation to head variation. From this study it was found that the second design method is most suitable for obtaining a good initial design.