Sediment Erosion on Pelton Turbines:A Review

The Pelton turbine has been widely used to develop high-head water resources with sediments because of its advantages in life cycle costs.When a flood or monsoon season occurs,the sediment concentration in the river increases suddenly,causing severe erosion to the nozzle,needle,and runner of Pelton turbines.After decades of development,researchers have developed practical engineering experience to reduce the sediment concentration of the flow through the turbine and ensure the safety and efficiency of power generation.Research on the mechanism of sediment erosion,development of anti-erosion materials,and establishment of erosion prediction models have attracted scholarly interest in recent years.Extensive research has been conducted to determine a complete and valuable syndication erosion model.However,owing to the complexity of the flow and wear mechanisms,the influence of specific parameters of erosion and the syndication effect is still difficult to determine.Computational fluid dynamics and erosion monitoring technology have also been evaluated and applied.This paper presents a comprehensive review of the erosion of Pelton turbines,some of the latest technical methods,and possible future development directions.

A FAST LAGRANGIAN SIMULATION METHOD FOR FLOW ANALYSIS AND RUNNER DESIGN IN PELTON TURBINES

In the present work, an alternative numerical methodology is developed for a fast and effective simulation and analysis of the complex flow and energy conversion in Pelton impulse hydro turbines. The algorithm is based on the Lagrangian approach and the unsteady free-surface flow during the jet-bucket interaction is simulated by tracking the trajectories of representative fluid particles at very low computer cost. Modern regression tools are implemented in a new parameterization technique of the inner bucket surface. Key-feature of the model is the introduction of additional terms into the particle motion equations to account for various hydraulic losses and the flow spreading, which are regulated and evaluated with the aid of experimental data in a Laboratory Pelton turbine. The model is applied to study the jet-runner interaction in various operation conditions and then to perform numerical design optimization of the bucket shape, using a stochastic optimizer based on evolutionary algorithms. The obtained optimum runner attains remarkably higher hydraulic efficiency in the entire load range. Finally, a new small Pelton turbine （150 kW） is designed, manufactured and tested in the Laboratory, and its performance and efficiency verify the model predictions.

NUMERICAL PREDICTION OF DYNAMIC PERFORMANCE OF PELTON TURBINE

Different from the reaction turbines, the hydraulic performance of Pelton turbine is dynamic due to the unsteady flow in the rotating buckets in time and space. The dynamic energy efficiency of bucket ηεB and power efficiency of bucket ηPB within a short period can be predicted from the dynamic flow pattern of the free-surface sheet flow in the rotating bucket, whereas the dynamic discharge efficiency of bucket ηQB is defined as the resident discharge in the bucket at the respective moment. Under the operation of higher unit speed non than the optimum one, the power efficiency of bucket is deteriorated by the jet interference with the rear surface of bucket △Prear at the first stage of the dynamic performance, as well as the loss power due to the spilt flow from the cutout of bucket at the later stage of performance. Based on the dynamic performance prediction presented, the future possibility of the quantitative investigation for the negative scale effect of Pelton turbines was discussed.

Parametric optimisation of two Pelton turbine runner designs using CFD

This paper aims to develop a generic optimisation method for Pelton turbine runners using computational fluid dynamics （CFD）. Two different initial runners are optimised to achieve more generic results. A simple bucket geometry based on existing bibliography is parameterised and initially optimised using fast Lagrangian solver （FLS）. It is then further optimised with a more accurate method using ANSYS Fluent. The second geometry is a current commercial geometry with good initial performance and is optimised using ANSYS CFX. The analytical results provided by CFX and Fluent simulations are used to analyse the characteristics of the flow for different runner geometries.

Pelton turbine: Identifying the optimum number of buckets using CFD

A numerical case study on identifying the optimum number of buckets for a Pelton turbine is presented. Three parameters： number of buckets, bucket radial position and bucket angular position are grouped since they are found to be interrelated. By identifying the best combination of the radial and angular position for each number of buckets it is shown that reduction in the number of buckets beyond the limit suggested by the available literature can improve the efficiency and be beneficial with regard to the manufacturing complexity and cost perspective. The effect of this reduction in the number of buckets was confirmed experimentally.

Overview of SPH-ALE applications for hydraulic turbines in ANDRITZ Hydro

Over the past 13 years, ANDRITZ Hydro has developed an in-house tool based on the SPH-ALE method for applications in flow simulations in hydraulic turbines. The initial motivation is related to the challenging simulation of free surface flows in Pelton turbines, where highly dynamic water jets interact with rotating buckets, creating thin water jets traveling inside the housing and possibly causing disturbances on the runner. The present paper proposes an overview of industrial applications allowed by the developed tool, including design evaluation of Pelton runners and casings, transient operation of Pelton units and free surface flows in hydraulic structures.