ANALYSIS AND ESTIMATION OF HYDRAULIC STABILITY OF FRANCIS HYDRO TURBINE

With the development of large-capacity hydro turbines, the hydraulicinstability of hydro turbines has become one of the most important problems that affect the stableoperation of the hydro-electric units. The hydraulic vibration and unstable operation of Francishydro turbines are primarily caused by the unsteady pressure pulsations inside draft tubes. Theforced rotating vortex core at the runner exit and the channel vortices inside Francis turbinerunners are origins of the unsteady pressure pulsations when operating at partial load. This paperbriefly analyzes the hydraulic instability of operation caused by the vortex core and channelvortices at partial load, then, presents a way to estimate the hydraulic stability by calculation ofthe flow behavior at the runner exit. The validity of estimation is examined by comparison withexperimental data. This will be helpful to evaluate the alternative design and predict the hydraulicstability for both the prototype and model hydro turbines.

Distortion behavior of hydro turbine blade castings during heat treatment processes under variation of seasonal temperature

Distortion often appears at the corners of heavy turbine blade castings during heat treatment processes, so a great machining allowance is generally set in production which directly results in cost increase. In this paper, a novel real-time measuring technology is developed for non-contact measuring the deformation behavior of heavy steel castings in heat treatment process. It was employed to measure the distortion and the temperature field of a batch of heavy turbine blade castings at cooling stage in normalizing process. Three inflection points appear in the distortion-time curves, and the residual distortion is affected by the regional area of not finished martensite transformation when the second inflection point appears. When the mean air temperature falls into the range of 10℃-20℃, the residual distortion is small; when it is lower than 10℃, positive distortion appears; when it is higher than 20℃, negative distortion appears. The distortion varies with seasonal temperature, which is directly responsible for the great machining allowance given in production.

ZERO MODE NATURAL FREQUENCY AND NONLINEAR VIBRATION OF COUPLED LATERAL AND TORSION OF A LARGE TURBINE GENERATOR

Zero mode natural frequency (ZMNF) is found during experiments. The ZMNF andvibrations resulted by it are studied. First, calculating method of the ZMNF excited byelectromagnetic in vibrational system of coupled mechanics and electrics are given from the view ofmagnetic energy. Laws that the ZMNF varies with active power and exciting current are obtained andare verified by experiments. Then, coupled lateral and torsional vibration of rotor shaft system isstudied by considering rest eccentricity, rotating eccentricity and swing eccentricity. UsingLargrange-Maxwell equation when three phases are asymmetric derives differential equation of thecoupled vibration. With energy method of nonlinear vibration, amplitude-frequency characteristics ofresonance are studied when rotating speed of rotor equals to ZMNF. The results show that ZMNF willoccur in turbine generators by the action of electromagnetic. Because ZMNF varies withelectromagnetic parameters, resonance can occur when exciting frequency of the rotor speed is fixedwhereas exciting current change. And also find that a generator is in the state of large amplitudein rated exciting current.

Hopf Bifurcation Research of Hydraulic Turbine Governing System with a Saturation Nonlinearity

A nonlinear mathematical model for hydro turbine governing system with saturation nonlinearity in small perturbation has been proposed with all the essential components, i.e. turbine, PID t^^pe governor with saturation part and generator included in the model. Existence, stability and direction of Hopf bifurcation of an example HTGS are investigated in detail and presented in forms of bifurcation diagrams and time ＂wavefomis. The analysis show,that a supercritical Hopf bifurcation may exist in hydraulic turbine systems in some certain conditions. Moreover, the dynaiidc behavior of system with different parameters such as Tw, Tab, Ty and 尺 are studied extensively. An example with numerical simulations is presented to illustrate the theoretical results. The researches provide a reasonable explanation for the Hopf phenomenon happened in operation of hydroelectric generating unit.

LARGE-EDDY SIMULATION OF TURBULENT FLOW CONSIDERING INFLOW WAKES IN A FRANCIS TURBINE BLADE PASSAGE

Turbulent flow in a 3-D blade passage of a Francis hydro turbine was simulated with the Large Eddy Simulation （LES） to investigate the spatial and temporal distributions of the turbulence when strongly distorted wakes in the inflow sweep over the passage, In a suitable consideration of the energy exchanging mechanism between the large and small scales in the complicated passage with a strong 3-D curvature, one-coefficient dynamic Sub-Grid-Scale （SGS） stress model was used in this article. The simulations show that the strong wakes in the inflow lead to a flow separation at the leading zone of the passage, and to form a primary vortex in the span-wise direction. The primary span-wise vortex evolves and splits into smaller vortex pairs due to the constraint of no-slip wall condition, which triggers losing stability of the flow in the passage. The computed pressures on the pressure and suction sides agree with the measured data for a working test turbine model.

INTRINSIC FEATURES OF TURBULENT FLOW IN STRONGLY 3-D SKEW BLADE PASSAGE OF A FRANCIS TURBINE

The turbulent flow, with the Reynolds number of 5.9×10^5, in the strongly 3-D skew blade passage of a true Francis hydro turbine was simulated by the Large Eddy Simulation （LES） approach to investigate the spatial and temporal distributions of the fully developed turbulence in the passage with strongly 3-D complex geometry. The simulations show that the strong three-dimensionality of the passage has a great amplification effect on the turbulence in the passage, and the distributions of the turbulence are diversely nonuniform, for instance, the rise of turbulent kinetic energy in the lower 1/3 region of the passage is more than 45%, whereas its rise in the upper 1/3 region is less than 1%. With the LES approach, the details of the flow structures at the near-wall surfaces of the blades could be obtained. Several turbulent spots were captured.

Experimental investigations of a prototype reversible pump turbine in generating mode with water head variations

Influences of water head variations on the performances of a prototype reversible pump turbine are experimentally studied in generating mode within a wide range of load conditions(from 25% to 96% of the rated power). The pressure fluctuations of the reversible pump turbine at three different water heads(with non-dimensional values being 0.48, 0.71 and 0.90) are measured and compared based on the pressure data recorded in the whole flow passage of the turbine. Furthermore, effects of monitoring points and load variations on the impeller-induced unstable behavior(e.g. blade passing frequency and its harmonics) are quantitatively discussed. Our findings reveal that water head variations play a significant role on the pressure fluctuations and their propagation mechanisms inside the reversible pump turbine.

A review of cavitation in hydraulic machinery

This paper mainly summarizes the recent progresses for the cavitation study in the hydraulic machinery including turbo- pumps, hydro turbines, etc.. Especially, the newly developed numerical methods for simulating cavitating turbulent flows and the achievements with regard to the complicated flow features revealed by using advanced optical techniques as well as cavitation simulation are introduced so as to make a better understanding of the cavitating flow mechanism for hydraulic machinery. Since cavitation instabilities are also vital issue and rather harmful for the operation safety of hydro machines, we present the 1-D analysis method, which is identified to be very useful for engineering applications regarding the cavitating flows in inducers, turbine draft tubes, etc. Though both cavitation and hydraulic machinery are extensively discussed in literatures, one should be aware that a few problems still remains and are open for solution, such as the comprehensive understanding of cavitating turbulent flows especially inside hydro turbines, the unneglectable discrepancies between the numerical and experimental data, etc.. To further promote the study of cavitation in hydraulic machinery, some advanced tooics such as a Density-Based solver suitable for highly comoressible cavitating turbulent flows, a virtual cavitation tunnel, etc. are addressed for the future works.