Efficiency and Cavitation Prediction For Hydraulic Machines: Dr. Dragica Jošt Dr. Aljaž Škerlavaj

ANSYS Convergence Virtual Conference
SE Europe, 5th July 2018
Efficiency and Cavitation Prediction for

Hydraulic Machines
dr. Dragica Jošt
dr. Aljaž Škerlavaj
Presentation:
1. Brief presentation of KOLEKTOR Turboinštitut

2. Flow conditions in turbines
3. Francis turbine, efficiency prediction
4. Francis turbine, prediction of losses in labyrinth seals
5. Francis turbine, pressure pulsations in the draft tube
6. Axial turbines, efficiency and cavitation prediction with advanced
turbulence models
7. Pelton turbines, efficiency and cavitation prediction
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
D. Jošt, A. Škerlavaj: Efficiency and Cavitation Prediction for Hydraulic Machines
ACTIVITIES
Turbines: - Development of water turbines

- Model acceptance testing in accordance
with IEC 60193 standard
- Site testing
- Computational Fluid Dynamics
Pumps: - Development of pumps

- Production, refurbishment and consultancy
Small Hydro Power Plants: design, manufacturing and installation

of small turbines and electro mechanical equipment
_____________________________________________________________________________________________ 3
Model Testing – Test Rigs for Pelton, Axial and Francis Turbines
Site Testing Production of Small Turbines
4
Reasons for using CFD in water turbines:

• CFD reduces the number of models and measurements
• CFD gives the insight in flow conditions inside water turbines
• For small projects model tests are too expensive
• Some phenomena on prototype can not be predicted by model tests
• Pressure distribution obtained with CFD is needed as input data for stress analysis
• CFD results can be used for criteria in optimization algorithms
_____________________________________________________________________________________________ 5
Flow conditions in turbomachinery:
• Viscous, incompressible flow
• Reynolds number – 106 , flow is turbulent
• Unsteady flow conditions
• Cavitation
• Dynamic behavior
• _____________________________________________________________________________________________
Free surface flow in Pelton turbines
CFD reduces the number of models and measurements

Turbine
efficiency
Old runner New runner

Q = 47.7 m3/s Q = 54.7 m3/s
_____________________________________________________________________________________________ 7
Refurbishment project - 1994 CFD gave an insight in flow

conditions.
Separate analysis of tandem
cascade, runner and draft tube
Computational grid had
31x31x71 nodes.
The reason for low efficiency at

large flow rates can be seen
from velocity distribution in the
draft tube.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Francis turbine ANSYS Convergence Virtual Conference
Flow energy losses and efficiency prediction
Computational mesh with details
Velocity distribution in stay and guide vane cascades Flow Energy Losses before the Runner
for three guide vane openings 3.0
DH/H *100 ( %)
2.0
1.0
0.0
0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30 0.35
j(-)
losses in the spiral casing

Pressure distribution on runner blades at three losses in the stay vane cascade
losses in the guide vane cascade
operating regimes
Flow energy losses in the draft tube Runner efficiency

Flow in the draft tube
9.0 96
8.0
7.0 95
DH/H *100 ( %)
6.0
h (%)
5.0
94
4.0
3.0
2.0 93
1.0
0.0 92
0.18 0.23 0.28 0.33 0.18 0.23 0.28 0.33
j(-) j(-)
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Losses in labyrinth seals
Grids for Labyrinth seals
Number of nodes Coarse grid Fine grid
Labyrinth seal at hub 10 M
Labyrinth seal at shroud 9M 63.6 M
Opening condition
with prescribed
static pressure
Periodic boundary
condition
Opening condition
with prescribed Rotating wall – red
static pressure Stationary wall – blue
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Cavitation prediction
Transient simulations with cavitation modelling
Steady state solution, Steady state analysis, Transient analysis,

cavitation not modelled cavitation modelled cavitation modelled
Results of steady state simulations without cavitation are used as initial for steady state analysis with cavitation.
Results of steady state analysis with cavitation are used as initial for transient simulation with cavitation.
Steady state, SST, cavitation Transient, SAS SST, cavitation
With steady state simulations with RANS turbulence models (k-ε, k-ω, SST)
usually no vortex rope is obtained.
The correct vortex rope can be obtained only with transient simulations
with more advanced turbulence models, such as SAS SST, RSM, LES or DES.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Rotating vortex rope at different operating regimes
Experiment
SAS SST model, no cavitation modelling, Iso-surface of P = 2700 Pa
Steady-state SST, cavitation modelling, Iso-surface Vapour Volume Fraction = 0.1
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
D. Jošt, A. Škerlavaj: Efficiency and Cavitation Prediction for Hydraulic Machines 12
Rotating vortex rope at part load – pressure pulsation
Results of transient simulation: Pressure pulsation at part load operating regime
Positions for monitoring of

pressure pulsation
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Kaplan turbine SE Europe, 5th July 2018
Kaplan turbine for middle head
b=200 b=280
b=120
Number of nodes in grids for all turbine parts
Turbine part Number of nodes

Semi spiral casing with stay
vanes 1,480,999
Guide vane cascade 2,755,496
Runner 1,858,374
Draft tube (Basic grid -BG) 1,786,432
Draft tube prolongation (BG) 398,056
Draft tube (Fine Grid - FG) 6,169,935
Draft tube prolongation (FG) 1,681,992
Total (BG) 8,279,357
Total (FG)_____________________________________________________________________________________________
13,946,796
Kaplan turbine
Streamlines and velocity contours in the draft tube
a) b)
c) d)
(a) steady state SST, HRS, FG, (b) transient SST, HRS, FG,
(c) SAS, BCDS, FG, (d) ZLES, BCDS, FG.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Kaplan turbine
Isosurfaces of velocity invariant Q=0, coloured by viscosity ratio

a) b) c)
d) e) f)
(a) steady state SST, HRS, (b) transient SST, HRS, (c) SAS, HRS,
(d) SAS, bounded CDS, (e) ZLES, bounded CDS, (f) ZLES, bounded CDS, BG.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
OP3 OP3 OP3
0 – measurement, 1 - steady state SST HR scheme, FG,

2 - transient SST, HRS, FG, 3 - SAS, HRS, FG
4 - SAS, bounded CDS, FG, 5 - ZLES, bounded CDS, FG,
6 - ZLES, bounded CDS, BG
Cavitation at OP4
σ = 0.52 ≪ σpl.
a) Photo from the test rig ,
b) Steady-state simulation,
SST
c) Transient simulation,
SAS SST.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Transient simulation with the SAS SST ZLES model on the basic grid
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Sliding interfaces Rotor stator interaction
• Frozen rotor: Velocity on the interface
• the position of runner blades is fixed relative to the between the runner and
stationary parts, the draft tube
• no mixing due to runner rotation is taken into account. Stage condition
• Stage condition:
• all quantities are averaged in circumferential direction,
• stage analysis is most appropriate when the
circumferential variation of the flow is small.
• Transient:
• the transient relative motion between the components on
each side of the GGI connection is simulated. The interface Frozen rotor condition
position is updated each time step.
• all interaction effects between components that are in
relative motion to each other are taken into account.
Transient condition
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
6 - jet Pelton turbine ANSYS Convergence Virtual Conference
Computational meshes
Nodes Elements
Distributor, Basic grid 12.5M 14.2M
Distributor, Refined grid 20.4M 31.9M
Runner 20.9M 45.7M
Quality of the distributor:
• Flow energy losses in distributor
• Distribution of flow rate between injectors
• Shape of the jets
• Secondary velocity in the jet
2 2
v sec  v x  v y
Shape of the jet and secondary velocity a b
a) basic grid, steady state SST,
b) refined grid, transient SAS SST
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Cavitation prediction for Pelton turbines ANSYS Convergence Virtual Conference
Cavitation in Pelton turbines:

Three-component flow: water, air and water vapour
Homogeneous model with free surface and cavitation modelling
Conditions for cavitation pitting on Pelton buckets:
1. Vapour cavity is sticking to the bucket surface.
2. Water vapour is condensed in a very short time.
3. The condensation of water vapour is developed in absence of air.
Locations, where cavitation pitting can be expected.
The picture is from the paper: A. Rossetti; G. Pavesi; G.

Ardizzon; A. Santolin, Numerical Analyses of Cavitating
Flow in a Pelton Turbine, J. Fluids Eng. 2014;
136(8):081304-081304-10.
Computational mesh
An example of
material erosion due
to cavitation
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Cavitation prediction for Pelton turbines ANSYS Convergence Virtual Conference
Cavitation at the inner side SE Europe, 5th July 2018
1 2 3
4 5 6
Water is presented with iso-surface of Water Volume Fraction = 0.8 in transparent red.
Water vapour is presented with iso-surfaces of Vapour Volume Fraction = 0.2 coloured with Wall Distance (dark blue).
At the inner side of the bucket a small cavity with less than 40% of water vapour can be observed. The condensation is very
slow therefore the conditions for cavitation pitting are not fulfilled.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Cavitation prediction for Pelton turbines ANSYS
Cavitation at the inner side SE Europe, 5th July 2018
Cavitation on the back side of the buckets

Water is presented with iso-surface of Water Volume
t* Fraction = 0.8 in transparent red.
Water vapour is presented with iso-surfaces of Vapour
t*+1.85E-4 Volume Fraction = 0.2 coloured with Wall Distance (dark
blue).
t*+2.96E-4 s
t*+4.33E-4 s
t*+6.296E-4s
The condensation is faster than at the inner

side of the bucket but the water vapour is in
contact with air, therefore no erosion of
material_____________________________________________________________________________________________
is expected. 23
Conclusions
• Numerical flow analysis with efficiency and cavitation prediction is an
indispensable tool for design and development of water turbines and
pumps.
• Correct qualitative results can be obtained even with steady-state
simulations in a short time.
• For accurate values of energetic, cavitation and dynamic characteristics
transient simulations with advanced turbulence models have to be
performed.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________ 24
Thank you for your attention !
_____________________________________________________________________________________________ 25

Efficiency and Cavitation Prediction For Hydraulic Machines: Dr. Dragica Jošt Dr. Aljaž Škerlavaj

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Efficiency and Cavitation Prediction For Hydraulic Machines: Dr. Dragica Jošt Dr. Aljaž Škerlavaj

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ANSYS Convergence Virtual Conference

SE Europe, 5th July 2018

Efficiency and Cavitation Prediction for

1. Brief presentation of KOLEKTOR Turboinštitut

Turbines: - Development of water turbines

Pumps: - Development of pumps

Small Hydro Power Plants: design, manufacturing and installation

Site Testing Production of Small Turbines

Reasons for using CFD in water turbines:

Flow conditions in turbomachinery:

• Viscous, incompressible flow

• Reynolds number – 106 , flow is turbulent

• Unsteady flow conditions

CFD reduces the number of models and measurements

Old runner New runner

Refurbishment project - 1994 CFD gave an insight in flow

The reason for low efficiency at

for three guide vane openings 3.0

losses in the spiral casing

Flow energy losses in the draft tube Runner efficiency

Transient simulations with cavitation modelling

Steady state solution, Steady state analysis, Transient analysis,

Steady state, SST, cavitation Transient, SAS SST, cavitation

SAS SST model, no cavitation modelling, Iso-surface of P = 2700 Pa

Steady-state SST, cavitation modelling, Iso-surface Vapour Volume Fraction = 0.1

Results of transient simulation: Pressure pulsation at part load operating regime

Positions for monitoring of

Kaplan turbine for middle head

Number of nodes in grids for all turbine parts

Turbine part Number of nodes

Streamlines and velocity contours in the draft tube

Isosurfaces of velocity invariant Q=0, coloured by viscosity ratio

OP3 OP3 OP3

0 – measurement, 1 - steady state SST HR scheme, FG,

Cavitation in Pelton turbines:

The picture is from the paper: A. Rossetti; G. Pavesi; G.

Cavitation on the back side of the buckets

The condensation is faster than at the inner

Thank you for your attention !

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