CFD validation of performance improvement of a 500 kW Francis turbine

Hyen-Jun Choi
a
, Mohammed Asid Zullah
b
, Hyoung-Woon Roh
c
, Pil-Su Ha
d
, Sueg-Young Oh
d
,
Young-Ho Lee
e,
*
a
Graduate School, Korea Maritime University, Dongsam-dong, Youngdo-ku, Busan 606-791, South Korea
b
Green & Industrial Technology Center, Korean Register of Shipping, Jang-dong, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, South Korea
c
IVAIGD3 Ltd., Yeomchang-dong, Gangseo-gu, Seoul, South Korea
d
K-water Resources Corp, Yeonchuk-dong, Daedeok-gu, Daejeon, South Korea
e
Division of Mechanical and Energy system Engineering, Korea Maritime University, Dongsam-dong, Youngdo-ku, Busan 606-791, Korea
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 6 February 2012
Accepted 13 August 2012
Available online 10 September 2012
Keywords:
Francis turbine
Computational uid dynamic (CFD)
Pressure distribution
Efciency
a b s t r a c t
Conventionally assessing of turbine performance was done by conducting model experiments which at
times become costly and time consuming for several design alternatives in design optimization. Recently,
computational uid dynamics (CFD) has become a more cost effective tool for predicting detailed ow
information in turbine space to enable the selection of the best design. With the growth of computa-
tional mechanics, the virtual hydraulic machines are becoming more and more realistic to get minor
details of the ow, which are not possible in model testing. The inverse design technique and fully 3-
dimensional ow simulations were performed early to manufacture the newly developed runner. It
allows a quick and efcient improvement and optimization of turbine components. The system has been
applied to the optimization of a Francis turbine runner for a turbine replacement project. In present
work, 3D turbulent real ow analyses in hydraulic Francis turbine have been carried out at four guide
vane opening at constant rotational speed using Ansys CFX computational uid dynamics (CFD) software.
The newly developed runner from reverse engineering and CFD results show an enhanced performance.
The average values of ow parameters like velocities and ow angles at the inlet and outlet of runner,
guide vane and stay vane of turbine are computed to derive ow characteristics. The aim was to analyze
the ow behavior and pressure distribution to further ne-tune the whole numerical experiment to
achieve the level of accuracy necessary for the concept design of a revitalized turbine. The obtained
results are in good agreement with the in site experiments, especially for the characteristic curve.
Crown Copyright 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
The computational uid dynamics (CFD) is the present day
state-of-art technique in uid ow analysis. It has wide range of
applications-like aerodynamics of aircraft and vehicles, ow anal-
ysis of turbo-machinery, hydrodynamics of ships, power plants,
automobiles, process industries, marine engineering, biomedical
engineering etc. Also, CFD analysis is considered as a powerful
alternative design tool to provide insight into ow characteristic in
hydropower components. Many investigators have applied CFD as
a numerical simulation tool for the analysis of Francis turbine such
as for prediction of part load performance, cavitation behavior,
rotorestator interaction etc. A team from Sulzer Hydro and Sulzer
Innotec [1] modeled a complete Francis turbine-from the inlet of
the spiral casing to the draft tube outlet using a 3D Navier Stokes
code which can be used to design new runners that match existing
components more accurately, at a lower cost than by using model
tests. Ciocan et al. [2] presented a CFD methodology to study the
unsteady rotating vortex in the draft tube of a Francis turbine at
part load conditions and associated experimental study of the ow
phenomena. They performed unsteady Reynolds-Averaged
NaviereStokes (URANS) simulation for the ow and validated the
same with experimental results. Bajic [3] introduced a novel tech-
nique for diagnostics of turbine cavitation in a Francis turbine
which enables the identication of different cavitation mechanisms
functioning in a turbine and delivers detailed turbine cavitation
characteristics, for each of the mechanisms or for the total cavita-
tion. He conducted the experiments and reported that how
a turbine cavitation behavior can be improved and how a turbine
operation can be optimized with respect to cavitation erosion.
Frequent repairs of the cavitation damage destroyed regular
ow passage, leading to drastic deterioration of turbine
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 82 51 410 4293; fax: 82 51 403 0381.
E-mail address: lyh@hhu.ac.kr (Y.-H. Lee).
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Renewable Energy
j ournal homepage: www. el sevi er. com/ l ocat e/ renene
0960-1481/$ e see front matter Crown Copyright 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2012.08.049
Renewable Energy 54 (2013) 111e123
performance. As a result, these turbines do not generate their rated
capacity. It is, therefore, strongly desired to rehabilitate the turbines
with new runners using modern design methods to update the
efciency, raise the capacity and improve the cavitation charac-
teristics. Runner replacement projects of this kind present a great
challenge for hydraulic design because of the geometrical
constraints of the existing machines. The ow in a hydro-turbine
runner is extremely complex, since it is generally turbulent,
unsteady and highly three-dimensional (3D) in nature with strong
effects from rotation and curvature. Recently, with the rapid
development of computer technology and advanced CFD, it has
become routine to directly simulate internal turbulent ow in
individual or multiple components of a turbomachine [4e6].
Examples include sophisticated large eddy simulations (LES) in
a Francis turbine [7] and in a centrifugal pump impeller at design
and off-design conditions [8]. However, a robust and fully 3D
inverse design approach, by which the required owcharacteristics
and parameters are specied as inputs and the corresponding blade
geometry is computed and generated as output, is still not
commonly performed [9,10]. Two primary factors have prevented
the advancement and wide application of inverse design methods.
One is that almost all the fundamental equations involved in the
inverse design methods developed so far [9e13] are based on the
assumption of inviscid ow, which is far different from the actual
complex turbulent ow conditions in most turbomachinery. The
other is that these inverse design equations require the input of
either pressure loading or angular momentum distribution, which
are heavily dependent on statistical and/or empirical data. Inverse
design methods also require a 3D viscous CFD code to provide ow
solutions to evaluate the design, with feedback from output solu-
tions to modify the input of pressure loading or angular momentum
distribution in an iterative optimization process. For all these
reasons, conventional blade design approaches integrated with
advanced CFD analysis have been revived in engineering practice
and have become powerful and effective tools for design optimi-
zation of turbomachinery [14e16]. CFD-based design procedures of
this type usually require several iterations of hydrodynamic design
and direct CFD evaluations to meet design specications or target
functions [14,16].
For hydraulic turbine the problems are the same as in turbo-
machinery. In hydraulic turbine the owing mechanismis not quite
clear so far and the relationship between the runner blade geom-
etry and the performance is not the only one. As a result the auto
optimization of the hydraulic turbine needs huge computation and
is a time-consuming job. To sum up, an optimization design on
a runner with performance close to the target based on CFD anal-
ysis may be a good choice. Through the CFD analysis of the internal
ow we can nd out the insufciency, then use a modication
method to improve hydraulic properties.
This paper presents the CFDapproach for prediction of efciency
of a 500 kW capacity Francis turbine. The numerical simulations
were carried out using commercial CFD package ANSYS CFX
(11)
for
the prediction of overall efciency. The overall efciency of hydro
turbine was determined based on the fundamental equations. The
various parameters used in the equations depend on the type of
boundary conditions used for the numerical simulation. The
comparison of CFD results with the model testing results obtained
from the manufacturer is also presented.
2. Francis turbine
The modern Francis turbine utilizes purely radial inlet ow
through stationary guide vanes, but the runners are mixed ow
devices with a component of the ow in the axial direction. The
trend from purely radial inow device through mixed ow devices
to near axial ow devices increases as the specic speed is
increased. The ow channel of a modern Francis turbine with
a vertical axis is shown in Fig. 1 comprising a spiral inlet case, stay
vanes, guide vanes, runner and draft tube. The spiral case of
a Francis turbine is designed such that the velocity distribution in
the circumferential direction at the inlet to the stay vanes is
uniform and the incidence angle over the height of the stay vanes
varies only little.
The main function of the stay vanes is to carry the pressure loads
in the spiral case and turbine head cover. Their second purpose is to
direct the ow towards the adjustable guide vanes with an optimal
incidence angle. The adjustable guide vanes are the only device
available to control the owand thus the power output of a Francis
turbine. Leakage owthrough the gaps between the guide vane tips
and facing plates causes efciency losses and can cause local
erosion [17]. The runner consists of a crown and band supporting
highly curved, three-dimensional sculpted blades. To reduce the
leakage ow between the runner and the casing, labyrinth seals at
the crown and band are provided. The diffuser downstream of the
runner is usually an elbow-type draft tube similar to that of Kaplan
turbines. The vortices in the draft tube at off-design conditions
often give rise to severe oscillations. At off-design conditions the
losses attributable to the runner, such as incidence losses, friction
inside blade passages and exit swirl losses, strongly increase, as do
the losses in the draft tube. Typical velocity triangles for a mean
streamline for lowand high specic speed n
s
turbines are shown in
Fig. 2. For very high n
s
the ow in the runner is nearly axial, giving
K
u1
z K
u2
. With decreasing n
s
the ow becomes increasingly radial
with larger differences between inlet and outlet diameters D
1
and
D
2
and hence between K
u1
and K
u2
. The increasing difference
between inlet and outlet velocity U
1
and U
2
explains the increasing
head as ns decreases.
The ow in a Francis runner is a strongly three-dimensional
rotational ow. The close proximity of the guide vanes to the
highly curved meridional ow channel leads to a non-uniform
meridional velocity at stator outlet. This gives rise to a strongly
rotational ow at the outlet of the stator vane and a severe three-
dimensional ow pattern inside the runner. Therefore only fully
three-dimensional methods will provide effective solutions of the
ow in a Francis runner. Typically the ow is roughly aligned with
Fig. 1. Computer visualization of a typical Francis runner of high specic speed.
H.-J. Choi et al. / Renewable Energy 54 (2013) 111e123 112
the meridional shape on the suction side of the blade, whereas on
the pressure side the owis forced towards the band. This indicates
the strong three-dimensional character and the distinct secondary
ow of a Francis runner.
The velocity vectors at the leading edge together with part of the
blading are shown in Fig. 12 for the same Francis runner. The
absolute and relative velocity components are shown and the
variation in the ow in the circumferential direction, especially at
the hub, is obvious. The three-dimensional character of the ow is
also evident in visualization of the ow on the suction side of the
blade in the vicinity of the leading edge at a turbine head greater
than the optimum (see Fig. 13). The ow enters the blade passage
and then deviates strongly towards the band. While operating at
the design ow rate this motion is aligned roughly parallel to the
leading edge. Operation at lower ow rates leads to the occurrence
of strong vortices which are contained within the blade passage.
These inter blade vortices may induce pressure pulsations.
3. Flow simulation
The purpose of this research is to develop a procedure for virtual
revitalization. The owthrough the hydraulic turbine of the Francis
type is quite complicated and can be calculated only by using
numerical methods [18e22]. Since the computational domain has
a complicated geometry, the analysis of the owthrough the whole
turbine runner puts high demand on computer memory and CPU
time. CFD simulation of all the ow channels of the Francis turbine
runner was performed to obtain pressure distributions on the
runner blade. A brief description of the numerical modeling of uid
ow is provided in the following subsection.
3.1. Dimensions of the runner
The development of hydraulic turbines is aimed towards two
goals: to achieve the maximum efciency and to avoid cavitation
damage with the highest possible circumferential speed and
meridional velocity in the runner for the given submergence of the
turbine. This Francis turbine site is located in Han River in Hoeng-
seong gapcheonmyeon province in South Korea. The dam was
constructed in that area due to water shortages in the region
annually and recurring ood damages. Now the power plant facil-
itates to 500 kW turbines and has an annual power production of
500e600 kWh.
The procedure is general, performed entirely using computers
and will be applied to the Francis turbines. The interest in this
particular case lies in the runner size modication (Fig. 3) therefore
it could be used to harness using more powerful efcient turbines.
For high head runners the cavitation problems are most likely to
occur at the outlet section of the blades. For such study, the
curvature of shroud and crown as well as curvature of the blades,
the blade angles and the blade leaning are the important
parameters.
3.2. Modeling
The rst step is building the geometrical model of the ow
domain. According to the provided specications three-
dimensional geometrical model has been created in stages shown
in Fig. 4. As shown in the gure, the entire uid passageway
between the inlet fromthe guide vanes side and the outlet fromthe
draft tube side for the turbine is considered. The extension to the
outlet was added to avoid any effect it would have had on the ow
near the blades. It should be noted that the extension is a part of the
draft tube. The investigated ow model (uid domain) is extracted
from the structured model (Francis turbine runner model). Fig. 5
shows the detail of the connection between ow domains used
for preliminary CFD simulations and Francis turbine runner model.
3.3. Discretization process
The uid domain discretization can be accomplished by
multiple means, but the most often adopted in three-dimensional
CFD are based on either tetrahedral or hexahedral volumes. A
mesh that consists of mainly tetrahedral elements is referred to as
unstructured mesh while a structured mesh is comprised of hex-
ahedral elements.
The structured mesh can provide higher accuracy in cases where
the grid is aligned with the ow direction [23]. In this study, three-
dimensional discretization has been used with the nite volume
method (FVM) provided by the ANSYS CFX software. The nite
volume method argued by some scientists to be the preferred
numerical approach in CFD involving complex geometries [23]. For
the computational domain, unstructured 3D tetrahedral meshing
has been employed, due to its exibility when solving complex
geometries. The whole computational mesh consists of 3,650,846
nodes.
In order to accurately simulate the ow in a turbine passage,
further mesh renement around the blades edges is required. The
volumes sizes in these regions are strictly controlled and particular
renements around blade ends surfaces have been made as shown
in Fig. 6. Due to complex geometry the model grid becomes large.
For comparatively ne mesh the steady state simulation leads to
a considerable amount of data.
Fig. 2. Velocity triangles for Francis turbines (a) with low ns and (b) with high ns.
H.-J. Choi et al. / Renewable Energy 54 (2013) 111e123 113
In all CFD simulations, a mesh dependence test is important in
order to check the convergence of the computation with respect to
spatial resolution. The mesh dependence test is performed by
rening the mesh to its nal conguration shown in Fig. 6 that has
been selected for the analysis.
The problem with nite volume approach is that the cells near
boundary are irregular and may required special treatment. Tetra-
hedral cells are not desirable near the walls and the cells are
irregular in few locations. To move the irregular cells further away
fromthe walls, one can rst create a layer of regular prisms near the
walls and then mesh the remaining volume with tetrahedrons [24].
This approach enhances the grid near the walls and leads to both
more accurate solutions and better convergence of numerical
solution methods. Fig. 7 shows parts of the grid created by
combining regular grids near the wall which then extends into
a mesh using tetrahedrons towards the interior.
3.4. Numerical modeling of turbulent uid ow and performance
prediction method
CFD calculation plays an important role in this blade optimiza-
tion procedure as shown in Fig. 3. In this section we will discuss the
establishment of the CFD model including turbulence model,
numerical methods and grid generation. The turbine performance
prediction method is also prepared. For steady incompressible
turbulence ow the continuity equation and momentum equation
can be written as
vu
i
vx
i
0; (1)
u
i
vu
i
vx
j

1
r
vp
vx
i
v
v
2
u
i
vx
j
vx
i

v
vx
j

u
0
i
u
0
j

F
i
; (2)
where u
i
is an average velocity component, and u
0
i
u
0
j
is the turbulent
stress. In a different turbulence model the expression for turbulent
stress is different. In the present paper a shear stress transport k
uSST k u turbulence model [25] is used. In the SST k u
turbulence model a k u turbulence model is applied in near wall
zone and a modied k u turbulence model is applied in the main
oweld. Its transport equation has a similar patternwith standard
k u turbulence model:
r
v
vx
i
ku
i

v
vx
j

G
k
vk
vx
j
!
G
k
Y
k
S
k
; (3)
r
v
vx
i
uu
i

v
vx
j

G
u
vu
vx
j
!
G
u
Y
u
D
u
S
u
; (4)
where k and u are turbulent kinetic and turbulence dissipation rate,
respectively, G
k
is a productive term of the turbulent kinetic, G
u
is
a productive term of the turbulence dissipation rate, G
k
and G
u
are
the effective diffusion coefcients of k and u, respectively, Y
k
and Y
u
are the dissipation terms of k and u, respectively, D
u
is the cross
diffusion term, and S
k
and S
u
are source terms. Compared with the
stand k u turbulence model a cross diffusion term D
u
is intro-
duced into the SST k u turbulence model; see eq. (4). In the
SST k u turbulence model the inuence of the turbulence shear
stress is taken into consideration in the denition of the turbulence
viscosity. And the constant in the SST k u turbulence model is
different from the stand k u turbulence model. Based on the
above characteristics the SST k u turbulence model can give
a more accurate and reliable simulation result for ows with
inverse pressure gradient [26], ows around complex objects [27],
transonic ows [21], etc.
Fig. 4. 3D Modeling development of runner.
Fig. 3. Schematic dimension of the runner.
H.-J. Choi et al. / Renewable Energy 54 (2013) 111e123 114
The second-order upwind scheme is used for the convection
term and the second-order center scheme is used for diffusion
term. A SIMPLE algorithm is adopted to realize pressure velocity
iteration. On the inlet boundary the total pressure is specied
according to the working water head. The static pressure is speci-
ed on the outlet boundary. The non-slip wall boundary condition
is applied. If the wall is rotating then the rotating speed is given.
Because of the complexity of the ow passage the unstructured
tetrahedron grids are applied to the bulb turbine. The grid size is
adjusted according to the wall y plus value. The grid distributions of
different parts of the turbine are shown in Fig. 4. Grid cluster is used
for the guide vane and the runner blade. From the CFD calculation
the ow pressure and velocity can be achieved through the whole
ow passage. Based on the simulation results the turbine perfor-
mances can be predicted. The ow rate Q across any face S can be
calculated by
Q V,S
X
n
i 1
V
ni
S
i
; (5)
where n is the number of the cells, V
ni
is the calculated individual
velocity along the face normal vector, and S
i
is the area of a face cell.
The total moment vector about a specied center A is computed by
summing the cross product of the pressure and viscous force
vectors for each face with the moment vector r
AB
, which is the
vector fromthe specied moment centre A to the force origin B. The
terms in this summation represent the pressure and viscous
moment vectors:
M r
AB
F
p
r
AB
F
v
; (6)
where F
v
is viscous force vector and F
p
is pressure force vector
which can be computed as the vector sumof the individual force for
each cell face:
F
p

X
n
i 1
pS; (7)
where n is the number of face and p is the calculated pressure. The
output power of the turbine is
Fig. 7. Tetrahedral-prism meshing for the casing domain.
Fig. 8. Wicket gate angles.
Fig. 5. 3D Modeling of Francis turbine.
Fig. 6. 3D unstructured grids generation by parts for the computational domain.
H.-J. Choi et al. / Renewable Energy 54 (2013) 111e123 115
P Mu; (8)
where u is the rotating speed of the runner. And the efciency of
the turbine can be calculated from
h
P
rgHQ
; (9)
where r is the water density, g is the magnitude of gravitational
acceleration, H is the working water head, P and Q are calculated
from eqs. (5) and (8).
3.5. Boundary conditions
The computations assume steady state incompressible uniform
uid ow in circumferential direction of the turbine runner. The
ow in the runner is described in the rotating frame of reference,
whereas the ow in the stationary components was expressed in
the stationary frame of reference. The boundary conditions for the
inow velocity components and outlet pressure conditions are
described below.
3.5.1. Inlet boundary condition
The inlet boundary conditions are determined from analytical
calculations and the guide vanes are not included in the compu-
tations. Inlet boundary conditions of the hydraulic turbine runner
are derived from an operation condition which includes: discharge
Q (m
3
/s), head H (m) and output power P (MW). The inlet boundary
conditions are developed from inlet velocity prole, because the
guide vanes are not included in the computations. The inlet
boundary condition consists of the tangential (whirl) and radial
velocity (velocity of ow) component for the operating point. Axial
velocity component for the operating point is set to zero. The
simulations were carried out for eight different operation condi-
tions. The given operation conditions and calculated velocity
components for these operating conditions are presented in Table 1
(Fig. 8).
3.5.2. Outlet boundary conditions
Outlet boundary conditions are dened by an opening with an
average relative pressure to atmospheric pressure.
3.5.3. Resolution phase
In engineering applications in order to achieve convergence of
the solution to an acceptable level, the residual is usually set
between four and six orders of magnitude lower than the actual
values [23]. Iterative methods are used to solve the corresponding
systemof algebraic equations, which allows one to characterize the
accuracies of approximation solution by analyzing the residual. In
this study, the RMS residuals settled to a steady state value within
100 iterations. The non-dimensional residual of the momentum
and continuity equations was between 10
4
and 10
6
. All simulations
of uid owwere performed using the commercial general purpose
CFD software ANSYS CFX using parallel network of workstation.
4. Results and discussion
In the present paper only the best operation condition of the
optimized turbine and optimum blade geometry was used. In order
Fig. 9. Performance values of the old runner and the newly developed runner simulation.
Fig. 10. Comparison of computed and measured turbine efciency over turbine output.
H.-J. Choi et al. / Renewable Energy 54 (2013) 111e123 116
to explain how the optimization principles work, only the best
optimized result is chosen to compare with the original turbine for
simplicity. The simulation results of the original turbine showed
that near the leading edge on the suction surface a low pressure
zone exists, while on the pressure surface a high pressure zone
existed. This means there was impact effect on the leading edge
which causes impact loss in the runner. This kind of loss can be
decreased by adjusting the leading edge angle according to the CFD
analysis.
First a numerical simulation is applied to the original Francis
turbine and the result is compared with experimental results to
check the method validity. Four different operation points
Fig. 11. The ow beneath the hub for different operating conditions.
Fig. 12. Instantaneous ows in the runner.
H.-J. Choi et al. / Renewable Energy 54 (2013) 111e123 117
including optimum condition are simulated with a xed unit speed
n 900 r/min at different wicket gate angle. Fluid ow simulations
through Francis turbines were performed with operating points
measured in-situ always taking into account the parameters of the
hydraulic system which were determined prior to running the
simulation. The relevant boundary conditions present during the
measurements were reproduced in the simulations to ensure
regularity of the comparison between computed and measured
data.
4.1. Model test results
Through CFD-based design optimization, the new model runner
is nally optimized and manufactured. Site test results are carried
out to validate its performance against CFD results. The tests
include the measurements of power and efciency. The new
performance test shows that the new design supplies approxi-
mately 640 kWof power, about a 9% upgrade fromthe old runner at
the rated condition (Table 2). As anticipated, a peak efciency of
88.06% is gained with the new design, more than 9% higher than
the original model (Table 3) (Fig. 9).
From Fig. 10, it can be clearly seen that the optimized model has
a corresponding higher efciency than the old turbine at similar
operating conditions. It can be further noted that the CFD predicted
efciency generally agrees well with the experimental data but
with a systematic underestimation, possibly due to the deciency
Fig. 13. Solution for absolute pressure on the runner.
Table 1
Operating conditions.
Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 Case 4
28

30

31

32

Casing inlet [atm] 4.3 4.3 4.3 4.3

Draft tube outlet [atm] 0
Table 2
Simulation conditions and results.
Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 Case 4 Unit
28

30

31

32

H 43.5 43.5 43.5 43.5 m

Q 1.25 1.34 1.39 1.43 m
3
/s
P
pp
460.96 507.19 531.70 564.18 kW
P
s
545.35 588.29 609.36 640.59 kW
h 84.5 86.2 87.25 88.06 %
H.-J. Choi et al. / Renewable Energy 54 (2013) 111e123 118
of the standard turbulence model and the wall function for strong
curvature and rotating ow. The model test results obtained indi-
cate that optimization of each component neighboring the runner
is important in assuring a high overall efciency for a turbine
rehabilitation project. It is shown that the simulation results have
a good agreement with the experiment. The biggest discrepancy is
no more than 1.5%, which certies the validity of the numerical
methods.
4.2. Streamlines of the tangential velocity in the runner
The streamlines of the tangential velocity in the uid domain
obtained from the CFD analysis for four operating conditions are
shown in Fig. 11. Streamlines of the ow relative to the runner are
used in the simulation. The symmetrical inowto the runner can be
seen, which results from the uniform ow distribution of the
runner inlet. The streamlines follow the crown shape properly for
the rst operating point as shown in Fig. 11, case 1. The ow
direction is almost radial at the outlet region and it is nearly axial at
the centre.
While the recirculation region varies with inlet boundary
conditions, it increases gradually by decreasing the velocity at inlet
as observed in Fig. 12, cases 1e4. The large region of recirculation is
observed at the last operating point as shown in Fig. 12, case 4. The
recirculation region extends fromthe lower part of the crown to the
outlet of the computational domain. In all cases, there is a sharp
increase in the magnitude of the velocity close to the trailing edge
of the blade near the ring, as shown in Fig. 12, cases 1e4, due to the
reduction of area between the blade and the ring.
An illustration of a owsimulation in a hydraulic turbine runner
is shown in Fig. 12. The tangential velocities can be observed for an
instantaneous operation condition at the inlet of the runner. The
gure shows streamlines of the tangential velocity starting at
different locations in the inlet runner. In this simulation it can be
observed that the ow is strongly accelerated towards the runner.
The tangential velocity component decreases on the blade at the
leading edge, which is due to the sharp bend of the ow on the
stagnation regions on the blades. The stagnation regions can be
observed on a blade near the leading edge. The location of the
stagnation points varies slightly with the operation conditions.
4.3. Surface static pressure distribution
The runner surface pressure distributions obtained from the
CFD analysis for four operating conditions are shown in Fig. 13.
Since water pressure depends on the operation conditions,
maximum magnitudes of water pressure are observed. Pressure
drops along a line situated in the middle of the runner, between the
ring and the crown. Reduction from high pressure in the runner
inlet to low pressure at the runner outlet is clearly observed. As
a result of the stagnation at the leading edge of the runner the
increasing pressure on the blades can be noticed, which is
explained by rapid decrease in the magnitude of the tangential
velocity close to the bend of the ow. Symmetrical pressure
distribution in circumferential direction can be observed, which
consequence of uniform ow distribution of the runner inlet.
Pressure distributions for the pressure and suction sides of the
runner blades for eight different operation conditions are shown in
Fig. 14. Pressure differences fromthe pressure and suction sides are
higher at higher loads. For all operation conditions pressure
distributions in the pressure side across the height of the runner
inlet are non-uniform. At the top of the runner the pressure is quite
Table 3
Site test results for the optimum condition.
H [m] P
t
[kW] h
t
[%] h
G
[%]
Before 43 482.57 77.51 92.87
After 43 538.41 87.44 92.87
Increase 9.93
Fig. 14. Solutions for pressure on the blades: (a) pressure on the suction side of the blade (b) pressure on the suction side of the blade.
H.-J. Choi et al. / Renewable Energy 54 (2013) 111e123 119
high whereas at the bottom the pressure is low. The increasing
pressure on the blades at the leading edge on both sides is clearly
visible. The reduction of pressure on the runner blade suction side
near the trailing edge is explained by higher magnitude of the
velocity at the trailing edge.
Stagnation zone on the pressure side at the leading edge of the
blade is caused by acceleration of the ow due to turning from the
radial to the axial direction. In all cases the pressure differences
from the pressure and suction sides are high and these differences
result in torque on the shaft. Under normal operating conditions,
a Francis turbine runner is subjected to two sorts of static loads,
namely, the centrifugal force induced by rotation and the load due
to the water pressure. In Francis turbines, the stresses caused by
centrifugal force during normal operation conditions are much
smaller than the stresses caused by water pressure [21,22], there-
fore the centrifugal force is not taken into consideration. The water
pressure acting on the blades is obtained from the CFD analysis.
4.4. Spiral casing and tandem cascade
While rotorestator interaction of wicket gates and runner
blades occurs in all hydraulic turbines, only in mediumto high head
machines, such as the one depicted in Fig. 15. This is due to the fact
that in these machines the velocity at the wicket gate outlet is
sufciently high and the radial gap between the blade rows tends to
be small. The hydraulic effect leading to the unsteadiness is
primarily a potential ow interaction between the non-uniform
ow distribution at the outlet of the wicket gates and the
rotating runner blades passing through this ow. Since the ow
eld in the radial space between the wicket gates and runner is
non-uniform circumferentially, both the static pressure and the
velocity (velocity magnitude and owangle) vary circumferentially.
The calculated pressure distribution on the central plane of the
existing spiral casing and tandem cascade under the target point
operation is displayed in Fig. 15. As can be seen fromthis gure, the
stagnation points, caused by stay vanes, coincide quite well with
the symmetric points at the leading edge of stay vanes, indicating
that the inow angle matches well the leading edge angle of stay
vanes. However, an inow with a large positive attack angle occurs
at the leading edge of the guide vanes, resulting in a severe pressure
drop on the suction side near the leading edge. Consequently, the
stagnation points are seen to deviate far fromthe symmetric points
at the leading edge and shift to the pressure side. At operating
points with larger ow rate than the target point, the inow
positive attack angle will become larger, leading to more serious
hydraulic losses. From the above discussions, it is realized that the
Fig. 15. Pressure contours on central plane of existing tandem cascade.
H.-J. Choi et al. / Renewable Energy 54 (2013) 111e123 120
leading and trailing edge angles, curvature, and geometrical
proles of both stay vanes and guide vanes can be further opti-
mized to assure the highest overall efciency for the present
rehabilitation. However, considerable modications on stay vane
proles should be avoided to save the cost of replacement.
4.5. Draft tube analysis
Velocity streamlines (colored by velocity magnitude) in draft
tube for different points of operation are shown on Fig. 16 where
red lines (in web version) denote high velocity, and blue lines
denote low velocity. Each point is represented with the path lines
released from the draft tube inlet section and with path lines
released only from the line on that section. Fromgures it is clearly
visible that the draft tube ow strongly depends on the point of
operation. It is seen that as wicket gate angle increases, less and less
streamlines enter into the draft tube along the tube wall, indicating
that more and more streamlines gather at the center of the draft
tube, forming a very strong swirling owwhich will induce intense
pressure uctuations in the draft tube; Obvious secondary owand
cross ow turn up in the runner, forming the channel vortex
possibly, and additional inertial force produced by owing through
the bend makes the ow in the diffusers unbalanced. The vortex
rope, a rotating helical structure which builds up in the draft tube of
a Francis turbine can be characterized by high values of normalized
helicity, which is a scalar eld derived from the given CFD velocity
data.
4.6. Static pressure distribution
The static pressure distribution along the hydrofoil of the
existing blade midspan sections is demonstrated in Fig. 17. The
lowest pressure zone with blade loading concentration near the
leading edge on the suction side beside the band is clearly
observed. As explained earlier, due to the mismatch of the outow
of the stay vanes with the leading edge angles of the guide vanes,
the stagnation points induced by the guide vanes deviate from the
symmetric points at the leading edge and shift to the pressure side,
leading to a low pressure zone on the suction side near the leading
edge, as can be seen from Fig. 17. The uniformity of pressure on the
blade surface can lead to thoroughly improved leading edge cavi-
tation. Optimization of the guide vane proles will direct the
outow from the stay vanes to match closely to the inow into the
guide vanes. This will lead to a dominantly uniform pressure
distribution along the complete guide vane surfaces along with the
disappearance of the low pressure zone on the suction side of the
vane leading edge.
Fig. 16. Streamline distribution in the runner and draft tube at different time when a 16 mm.
H.-J. Choi et al. / Renewable Energy 54 (2013) 111e123 121
5. Conclusion
ACFD-baseddesignsystem, whichintegrates afull Francis turbine,
is presented in this paper. CFD allows a quick and efcient improve-
ment and optimization of turbine components. The system has been
applied to the optimization of a Francis turbine runner for a turbine
replacement project. Extensive turbulent owsimulations have been
conductedfor boththe existingandnewdesigns at thecorresponding
optimumand off designconditions. The coupled calculations are very
efcient in guaranteeing a good ow match between different
components. Numerical prediction, including the evaluation of the
local ow and the global variables, of the turbine model at optimum
and off design conditions is critical to ensure the satisfaction of the
desired performance specications. The performance of the new
designhas beenveriedby model. The highly successful combination
of the CFD-based design optimization with model testing has nally
resulted in a new model which can provide about 9.93% upgrade in
peak efciency. In addition the model provides for a thoroughly
improved cavitation characteristic with extremely smooth perfor-
mance over a much wider range of operations compared to the
existing design. The overall efciency of turbine predicted by CFD
approach was compared with the site testing results obtained from
the manufacturer showedaverygoodagreement. It canbe concluded
that CFD approach complements the other approaches, as CFD
approach helps in reduction in cost of model testing and saving in
time whichleads to cost-effective designof the system. CFDapproach
may be helpful in improvement of the existing efciency measuring
techniques and evaluation of the performance of hydro turbines to
enhance the viability of hydropower development.
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