Ruchi Khare

Performance Evaluation of Hydraulic Francis Runner at Different Blade Stagger

The runner of turbine extracts energy from flowing water and hence plays great role in efficiency of turbine. The design of runner is based on many assumptions as the flow behavior is affected by many design parameters. Hence it is customary to assess the flow behavior in runner space for its efficient design. In this paper, numerical simulation of Francis turbine space has been carried out for four variants of runner with different blade stagger values at three guide vane openings. The local and global hydrodynamic parameters for runner and turbine are computed and the effect of stagger on these parameters at different turbine operating regime is studied.

Performance Analysis of Axial and Mixed Flow Turbines: A Comparative Study

The reaction turbines have application for very wide range of hydro power projects. Turbine is the most important component of hydro power plant. Its cost varies 15-35% of the total cost of hydropower project. The analysis of flow behavior of turbine under various operating conditions for cost effective design of the turbine is utmost importance. The model testing of turbine gives overall performance of turbines based on global parameters. This approach is very costly and time consuming. The computational fluid dynamics compliments experimental and theoretical approach by providing an alternate cost effective means of simulating real turbulent flow. In the present paper, the numerical flow simulation of axial and mixed flow turbine has been carried out to study the effect of operating conditions on the local and global parameters of turbine. The simulation results for efficiency and output bear close comparison with experimental results.