Paper No.

157

VLH : Development of a new turbine for Very Low Head sites

By Richard Fraser & Claire Deschênes, Laval University, Québec, Canada
Claude O'Neil, Ateliers Onmec inc., Québec, Canada
and Marc Leclerc, MJ2 Technologies, France

Abstract

In Canada as well as worldwide, much of the small hydro potential has already
been developed and the remaining valuable potential is very low head hydro
having heads typically less than 2 meters. The deployment of this very low head
hydro potential is in general technically feasible but economically unviable largely
because the associated insurmountable civil works costs. Therefore new
approaches and technologies to significantly lower the civil costs and balance the
overall project costs are essential to pave the way to harness the very low head
hydro potential. In this context, a Very Low Head turbine (VLH) project is under
development through an internationally cooperated project which combines the
joint effort of French and Canadian partners. The VLH turbine was designed in
particular to equip very low head sites for head range between 1.4 and 3.2
meters. Extensive Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling and finite
element calculations were used to design a reliable, efficient and fish friendly
turbine by the French inventor MJ2 and Institut National Polytechnique de
Grenoble, France. A model turbine was manufactured by Ateliers Onmec Inc.
through the support from Natural Resources Canada. A special test rig has been
set up at the Hydraulic Machinery Laboratory (LAMH) at Laval University,
Canada, to test and to validate the turbine design and CFD prediction, and
various turbine configurations are being measured to optimize the turbine layouts
and to minimize civil works. A first prototype turbine will be installed in Millau,
France as a pilot demonstration project to show the effectiveness of civil works
and costs reductions, and to evaluate the on-site turbine performance and the
fish turbine passage capability. This paper will focus on the technical aspects of
the turbine hydraulic design and the analysis based on both CFD prediction and
model tests results.

Introduction

The installation of most of very low head sites is technically feasible, but civil
works give rise to high costs, resulting to economically unviable projects. To
solve this problem, MJ2 Technologies has decided to design a new machine
using a completely different philosophy to equip such sites.

Through its design philosophy, the VLH is in opposition to manufacturer's trend,

which is to minimise the runner diameter, reducing turbine costs. This tendency
gives rise to an important increase in velocities, resulting in an important rise in
civil costs. The large diameter of the VLH combined with the use of its block as

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 Paper No. 157

dam, reduce to minimum the civil works needed by the VLH when installed in a
lock, a canal or in old mills. Also, since velocity is low, there is no need for a draft
tube because there is no kinetic energy to recover. This low velocity is also an
interesting characteristic to make the VLH a fish friendly turbine.

Turbine description

The VLH is not a specific site designed turbine but a family of turbines. The
objective is to build five similar turbines with diameters from 3.55m to 5.60 m.
The VLH is an axial turbine with 8 blades. It's a double regulated turbine with
Kaplan runner blades and its variable speed generator. The fixed distributor has
18 wicket gates with three flat bars inserted between each of them as a trash
rack and structural stiffner. An automatic rotary trash rack cleaner is incorporated
to the turbine. However, this characteristic hasn't been modeled in laboratory
neither on CFD. The position of the blade's axis has been calculated in order to
get a closing force for every operating condition. Since it's a self-closing machine,
there is no need to install a gate as a closing system. The targeted nominal
design point is Q11 0.7 m³/s and N11 105 rpm.

Figure 1 a) Figure 1 b)
VLH distributor with wicket gates and trash rack VLH runner seen from downstream

The VLH's bloc is slanted and can be positioned between 30° and 50° from
vertical axis. This characteristic is sites dependent, as per head and downstream
configuration. Figure 2 shows the VLH implantation at 45° under a head of 2.1 m
at the demonstration site of Millau in France.

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 Paper No. 157

Figure 2: Installation of VLH prototype at Millau, France

Fish friendliness

Fish friendliness characteristics of the VLH were design according to a biological

study. Roche ltd., a consulting group in Québec, has been mandated to identify
and quantified criteria to meet in order to make this turbine acceptable for
relevant species and size of fish. Ten parameters have been identified. Eight of
them are quantitative, the remaining two are qualitative.

- Peripheral velocity of the runner has to be lower than 12 m/s: VLH will range
from 4.5 m/s to 9.3 m/s, depending of head and operating conditions.
- Absolute pressure in the turbine has to be higher than 40% of upstream
pressure: 94 kPa is the minimal absolute pressure in the turbine according
to CFD simulations.
- Maximum pressure gradient has to be lower than 550 kPa/s: 80 kPa/s is the
maximum value according to CFD simulations.
- Maximum velocity gradient through shear zones has to be less than
180m/s/m: 10 m/s/m is the maximum value according to CFD simulations.
- Maximum tip gap has to be 2 mm: the largest VLH (5.6 m) is expected to
have 4.5 mm.

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 Paper No. 157

- Optimum turbine efficiency has to be better than 85%: the performance

measured on model for the VLH was 86%.
- Finally, considering spawning run concern, the absolute velocity at inlet and
outlet of the turbine is species dependent. A range of 0 m/s to 3.4 m/s is
recommended, higher velocities being reachable for salmonid only.

On a qualitative point of view, water passage in the runner should be maximised

and number of runner blades should be minimised.

From the above listed characteristics, one can see that VLH turbine agrees easily
to most of them, except tips gap, which exceed the requested value. Regarding
the spawning run, since VLH has been designed for sites between 1.4 m and 2.8
m, number of species like salmon (Atlantic, Chinook, Coho and Pacific) and
rainbow trout will be able to jump over the turbine because they can jump from
2.1 m to 3.3 m. However, a calling flow is requested over the turbine. In addition,
if the VLH is installed in lock or old mills, spawning run of fishes won't be
disturbed.

Geometry design and flow calculation

For VLH design, different non classical constraints are imposed:

- The fixed distributor is used to guide the flow at runner inlet with the proper
velocity profile and will also be used as a trash rack.

- The runner blades will be used to transform the hydro energy in mechanical
energy with the best efficiency as possible. For manufacturing convenience,
the blade axis is straight and its diameter is imposed in the span direction.
The runner is used as a vane in the circuit for 0° opening, and then the
blades must be in perfect contact.

Different specific procedures in C++ have been developed to design the

distributor geometry and runner blades. In particular, an optimization algorithm
has been applied to satisfy all those constraints.

The distributor shape is shown on the figure 3. It has 18 wicket gates with three
flat bars inserted between each of them to avoid that some stones will be blocked
in the wicket gate channels.

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 Paper No. 157

Figure 3: Distributor-trash rack geometry

The constraints on runner blades imposed the axis diameter. It has been
satisfied with the best performances as possible, see figure 4.

Figure 4: Runner geometry with axis location and closing constraint

The flow calculation has been performed using NUMECA-Euranus software. The
distributor and runner flows are calculated together using a rotor-stator procedure
with a mixing plane assumption. The fish-friendly criteria have been controlled in
the post-processing tools.

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 Paper No. 157

Figure 5: Rotor-stator CFD tool used for flow calculation

Test stand

Since VLH has no penstock and the turbine frame is the dam, this turbine has to
be tested in a free surface canal, allowing evaluation of the flow surface at
turbine inlet. A special test rig has been set up in the Hydraulic Machinery
Laboratory of Laval University. This 5 m long canal has a section of 0.9 m wide
and 1.2 m high. This test rig has been used to test a 672 mm runner under a
head of 1 m. The flow conditions were controlled by the same PLC than for
standard LAMH's test rig and the same data acquisition system has been used.

The model was not fully homologous with the prototype for this test campaign.
Three main differences were identified. First, a shaft passed through the
upstream flow in order to reach the generator. On prototype, generator will be in
the hub, similar to a bulb. Second, a cylindrical outlet pipe has been added to be
able to reach 1 m head. This pipe was needed since proportions between runner
diameter and head wasn't respected on model. One can see on figure 2 that it is
not necessary to have an exit pipe on prototype since the runner is almost
completely submerged. Only a small part of pipe is requested on the top. The last
difference is the trash rack cleaner, which wasn't modeled for testing purpose.

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 Paper No. 157

Figure 6: tests stand schematic Figure 7: Lab mounting

Measurements and results

During autumn 2006, the VLH turbine has been tested at LAMH on a wide range of
operating conditions according to IEC 60193 standards. During this test campaign,
VLH has been tested in four different angular position from 30° to 50° from vertical
axis positions, for Q11 between 0.2 m³/s and 1.2 m³/s and N11 between 65 rpm and
280 rpm. One can see on figure 6, the very flat characteristic curve of the VLH,
especially between Q11 0.4 m³/s and Q11 0.8 m³/s, which is the range with
efficiency over 80% on model. The maximum efficiency measured on model is
86%. These results being on model, scale up will have to be applied depending of
prototype.

Q
Q11 = 2
D H

nD
N 11 =
H

In opposition with efficiency tests, which consider Reynolds similitude, the free
surface flow study has to consider the Froude number since it is a ratio between
inertia force and gravitational force:

V
Fr =
gD

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 Paper No. 157

where V is the mean axial velocity in the runner, g the gravitational acceleration
and D the runner's diameter. Since head H is proportional to V2, one can see that if
head scale factor follows diameter scale factor, the Froude similitude will be
respected. If head scale factor is lower than diameter scale factor, surface
conditions will be improved.

Hp Dp
≤
Hm Dm

Figure 8 shows the upstream flow surface in the 35° position for maximal opening
a) at best operating velocity and b) at lower velocity, indicating the presence of
vortex, but no air admission. If prototype dimensions respect this relation, no air
admission will occur.

Figure 8 a): 30 mm – N11 106 Figure 8 b): 30mm – N11 85

100

90

80

70

60
Efficiency(%)

50

40

30

20

10

0
0,3 0,5 0,7 0,9 1,1 1,3 1,5 1,7 1,9 2,1
Q11 (m³/s)

Figure 9: Efficiency curves

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 Paper No. 157

Conclusion

A new turbine called VLH has been designed and tested to equip Very Low Head
sites, especially between 1.4 m and 3.2 m in a collaborative program between
France and Canada. This family of turbines has been numerically designed for
both optimizing performance and meeting ten fish friendly criteria. A scaled model
has been built to validate both free surface flow at turbine's inlet and its efficiency
on a dedicated test stand. VLH model has a maximum efficiency of 86% on a very
flat curve, more than 80% for Q11 ranging from 0.4 m³/s to 0.8 m³/s. This new
turbine can make very low head sites profitable.

References

[1] Hydraulic turbines, storage pumps et pump-turbines – model acceptance

tests, international standards, IEC 60193, 1999.

[2] Munson, B.R., Young, D.F., Okiishi, T.H., Fundamentals of fluid mechanics,
John Wiley & sons, 1990.

[3] Sinniger, R.O., Hager, W.H., Constructions hydrauliques, Presses

polytechniques romandes, 1989.

Authors

Richard Fraser is the test engineer at Laval University's Hydraulic Machines Laboratory
(LAMH), Québec, Québec.

Dr. Claire Deschênes received a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Université
Laval (Quebec) in 1977. She obtained a PhD. from the École Nationale Polytechnique of
Grenoble (France) in 1990. Hired as a Professor in 1989 at the Faculty of Science and
Engineering at the Université Laval, she created the LAMH (Laboratoire de Machines
Hydrauliques), a Fluid Mechanics Laboratory incorporating turbomachinery facilities.

Mr. Claude O'Neil, M.Sc. has over 15 years of experience in small hydro generating
stations design, development and construction and 10 years as turbines suppliers in North
America. He is presently president of Novatech-Lowatt Turbines Inc and administrator of
Atelier Onmec Inc, respectively distributor and manufacturer of the VLH turbines for North
America. Mr. O'Neil is also the owner of a small hydroelectric plant in Canada and the
president of the Quebec Association for Renewable Energy Production (AQPER ).

Marc Leclerc is general manager at MJ2 Technology in France. Former International Sales
Manager of ALSTOM Hydro (Small Turbine Branch Barcelona), former technical Director
of HIDRODATA (Hydropower Producer owning 25 Hydropower Plants in south east of
Spain) he has been managing the development of computer based command and control
equipment for SHP.

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