Benzon 2015

Journal of Fluids Engineering.
Received December 05, 2014;

Accepted manuscript posted May 15, 2015. doi:10.1115/1.4030628
Copyright (c) 2015 by ASME
Numerical investigation of the spear valve configuration

on the performance of Pelton and Turgo turbine injectors
and runners
Benzon, D.a, Židonis, A. a, Panagiotopoulos, A.a b, Aggidis, G. A. a, Anagnostopoulos, J. S.b, Papantonis
D. E.b
a - Lancaster University Renewable Energy Group and Fluid Machinery Group, Engineering
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Department, Engineering Building, Bailrigg, Lancaster, Lancs, LA1 4YR, UK
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b - School of Mechanical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece
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*Corresponding Author: g.aggidis@lancaster.ac.uk (Aggidis G. A.)
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Abstract:
This paper uses two modern commercial CFD software packages to compare the performance of a
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standard and improved impulse turbine injector developed in a previous study. The two injector
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designs are compared by simulating the 2D axis-symmetric cases as well as full 3D cases including
the bend in the branch pipe and the guide vanes. The resulting jet profiles generated by these
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simulations are used to initialise the inlet conditions for a full Pelton and Turgo runner simulation at
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different operating conditions in order to assess the impact of the injector design on the
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performance and efficiency of a real impulse turbine.

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The results showed that the optimised injector design, with steeper nozzle and spear angles, not
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only attains higher efficiencies in the 2D and 3D injector simulations, but produces a jet which
performs better than the standard design in both the Pelton and the Turgo runner simulations. The
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result show that the greatest improvement in the hydraulic efficiency occurs within the injector with
the improved design showing an increase in efficiency of 0.76% for the Turgo 3D injector and 0.44%
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for the Pelton 3D injector. The results also show that in the case of the 3D injector, the improved
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injector geometry produces a jet profile which induces better overall runner performance, giving a
0.5% increase in total hydraulic efficiency for the Pelton case and 0.7% for the Turgo case.
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Keywords: Impulse Turbine Injectors, Pelton-Turgo runner, Hydraulic Efficiency, Numerical

Modelling, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Hydropower, Spear valve design.
Downloaded From: http://fluidsengineering.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 06/16/2015 Terms of Use: http://asme.org/terms

Journal of Fluids Engineering. Received December 05, 2014;
1 Introduction
Hydropower provides reliable and efficient source of renewable energy and forms an important part
of the energy balance. Impulse machines such as the Pelton, invented in 1880 by Lester Pelton [1],
and the Turgo, invented by Eric Crewdson of Gilkes in 1919 [2,3], operate at high and medium heads
respectively. Although the specific speeds of these machines differ, with the jet entering the Pelton
runner peripherally and the Turgo runner inclined axially, they share the same injector design which
utilises a fixed nozzle and adjustable spear allowing control of the flow rate.
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Due to the high complexity and unsteadiness of the flow during jet-runner interaction, the
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development of impulse turbines is difficult and requires sophisticated equipment for flow
observation [4-7] or high cost computational resources for accurate numerical analysis [8-16]. There
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are some studies available where a selection of injector designs are modelled and compared using
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CFD [17-19] or using a visual analysis [20-22]. However there is a lack of publications describing a
thorough investigation of basic injector design parameters together with the importance they have
on the performance of an injector. ot
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A design of experiments study on impulse turbine injector geometry which analysed the main
injector dimensions was carried using 2D axisymmetric models prior to this work [23]. An optimised
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design was created with nozzle and spear angles of 110° and 70° compared to the standard 90° and
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50° nozzle and spear angles. In the present study these two injectors are compared further by
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including the pipework and spear holding vanes upstream of the injectors which have been shown to
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add disturbances to the jet [4]. The 3D jet profiles produced by these simulations are then imported
into the full Pelton and Turgo runner simulations and used to compare the performance of each
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injector design. Commercial CFD codes ANSYS® CFX® [24] and ANSYS® Fluent® [25] were used for
this study.
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2 Injector design and meshing

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A typical spear valve injector for impulse turbines is shown in Fig. 1, where its main dimensions
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are also depicted. As a result of the differences in geometry, the flow rates for 110-70 and 90-50
nozzle/spear angles at the same spear valve opening are different. In order to compare the 110-70
and 90-50 injectors of the same diameter at a single operating point for both the Pelton and the
Turgo runners, the spear travel has to be adjusted to match the flow rates. By running each 2D
injector case with the same head at 5 different opening positions, polynomial curves could be fitted
to the points showing the relationship between the spear travel and the normalised flow rate

(Fig. 2.). Using these curves, the flow rate was fixed for the 90-50 injector to a = 0.33, where a is the
non-dimensional ratio of spear opening divided by the nozzle exit diameter (Fig. 1).The spear travel
for the 110-70 injector was then adjusted to a = 0.25 to give a matching flow rate for the 110-70
injector (Fig. 2).
Fig. 1. Typical spear valve injector configuration
Fig. 2. Spear travel/nozzle diameter (a) against flow rate for 90-50 and 110-70 designs with
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polynomial fit curves
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The geometry of the injector fluid domain is shown in Fig. 3 illustrating the 110-70 nozzle and spear
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geometry. For the 90-50 design all the injector parts were identical except the nozzle and spear
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angles. The geometry of interest includes a 60o bend with a flow obstructing spear shaft and six
spear holding vanes. This domain geometry was blocked to assist the meshing process. The injectors
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were meshed using the ANSYS Mesher tool. The mesh was semi-structured containing 7.7 million
cells and 4.4 million nodes. The minimum orthogonal quality was above 0.1. Fig. 4. provides an
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image of a complete mesh and Fig. 5. gives a more detailed mesh view of the nozzle exit and spear
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tip. Tetrahedral elements were used to mesh the geometry region at the bend that contains the
spear shaft and the region around the spear holding vanes. Tetrahedral elements were also used at
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the spear tip and 5 inflation layers were used on all the wall boundaries an example of which is
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provided in Fig. 5. These meshes were scaled as required for both case studies: Pelton and Turgo.
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Fig. 3. Injector domain geometry using 110-70 nozzle/spear design
Fig. 4. 3D Mesh of a complete geometry assembly for the 90-50 nozzle/spear design
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Fig. 5. Magnified view of the mesh at the nozzle exit and spear tip
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3 Injectors for a Turgo turbine

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3.1 Stand-alone injector comparison

Firstly, the full injector assembly containing the bend and the spear holding vanes was modelled in
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3D, as shown in Fig. 6. The jet profiles were compared to the results of the 2D axisymmetric
simulation, the case that was used in the previous design optimisation study [23]. The full 3D
injector was simulated with a symmetry plane vertical to the axis of the pipe bend, while the rest of
the settings were the same as in the 2D case in [23]. The injector hydraulic efficiency is computed at
a distance of two diameters from the nozzle exit, as shown in Fig. 6. In this way the losses due to the
friction with the air are included in the injector efficiency results.

Fig. 6. Image of the 3D injector simulation with the reference locations: P - reference plane at the
distance of 2 nozzle opening diameters from the nozzle exit, H – horizontal line for 2D profiles, V –
vertical line for 2D profiles
Comparisons are presented in Fig. 7 and Fig. 8 for the 90-50 and the 110-70 injector designs
respectively. One general observation is that the 2D axisymmetric velocity profile is very close to the
3D horizontal velocity profile in terms of the jet diameter, the maximum velocity and the width of
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the reduced velocity region (or the ‘dip’) at the centre. The main difference between 2D and 3D
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horizontal is the minimum velocity at the jet axis, which is due to the non-axisymmetric profiles
obtained in the 3D simulation. Indeed, the 3D vertical velocity profiles are quite different from the
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3D horizontal or the 2D axisymmetric showing clear deviation from the axis. This deviation is most
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probably caused by the bend upstream of the nozzle and has been observed by other researchers
[4, 5]. The change of flow direction creates a pair of counter-rotating secondary flow vortices (Dean
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vortices), which are established above the spear shaft, as shown in Fig. 9. These vortices interact
with the spear holding vanes and fragment into several smaller vortices, which remain in the jet
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even after the nozzle exit and are responsible not only for its deviation from the axis but also for the
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observed surface disturbances (Fig. 10 and Fig. 11).
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Fig. 7. Comparison of 90-50 injector jet axial velocity profiles at a distance of 2 nozzle diameters from
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the nozzle exit

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Fig. 8. Comparison of 110-70 injector axial jet velocity profiles at a distance of 2 nozzle diameters
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from the nozzle exit

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Fig. 9. Vector plot of secondary velocities in the flow before the spear holding vanes
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Comparing the two injectors, it can be seen that the 110-70 design (Fig. 8) reduces the jet deviation,
and the velocity reduction at the centre is much closer to the axisymmetric shape than the 90-50
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design (Fig. 7). Moreover, the peak secondary velocities were reduced by about 10% in the 110-70
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(Fig. 11) injector design compared to the 90-50 design (Fig. 10). Therefore, it is deduced that the use
of larger nozzle and spear angles stabilizes the jet and enhances its quality.
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Fig. 10. Vector plot of 90-50 injector design secondary velocities in the free jet at a distance of 2
nozzle opening diameters from the nozzle exit

3.2 Injector combined with a Turgo runner

The geometry for an optimised Turgo runner (Fig. 12) was taken from a previous numerical
optimization study [8], and its main characteristics are given in Table 1.
Fig. 12. Optimised Turgo runner CAD design [8]
Table 1. Turgo runner main characteristics

Nominal Diameter [mm] 285
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Rotational Speed [rpm] 1000
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Net Head [m] 48
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Nozzle Diameter [mm] 100
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Using a nozzle diameter of 100mm and the design head of 48m, the 110-70 and 90-50 injectors
produced flow rates of 96.9 kg/s ±0.6% for both the 2D axisymmetric and the 3D simulations with
the branch pipe. ot
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The operation of the Turgo runner can be simulated with acceptable accuracy by modelling the flow
through a single blade passage (using a two bladed model) and mapping the torque curve for this
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single passage by the number of blades to give the total torque. The rotating domain was created in
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this manner.
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The complexity of the impulse turbine runner simulations, which includes 3D multiphase transient
flow, required an extended study in order to achieve satisfactory accuracy. In order to achieve grid
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independent results and sufficiently capture the effect of slight changes in the jet profile on the
Turgo runner performance, a very dense mesh containing 6.79M elements was used for the rotating
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domain. A structured mesh was used for the stationary domain, which includes the jet inlet, and
contained around 190k elements. The orthogonal quality was above 0.2 for both the stationary and
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rotating domain meshes.

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The Homogeneous multiphase method was selected in ANSYS® CFX® based on the available
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published research in this area [26-30]. The high resolution advection scheme was chosen which
uses a Fourth Order numerical model and blends to Second Order near pressure extrema as used in
[23]. The timestep was calculated to maintain a courant number below 1 and the convergence
criteria was a residual target of 1e-4 with a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 10 iterations per
timestep.

The indicative snapshots in Fig. 13 shows the jet entering and leaving the runner at the peak torque
for the 110-70 3D injector profile used at the inlet. It can be clearly seen here how the disturbances
in the jet surface become more pronounced as the jet travels away from the injector.
Fig. 13. Isosurface at water volume fraction 0.5 for the 3D 110-70 injector jet profile– peak torque
timestep
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The hydraulic efficiency is calculated from the Turgo runner simulations using the jet profiles
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exported from the injector simulations at the inlet. The 90-50 and 110-70 (2D last part and full 3D)
injector efficiencies are compared for the Tugro case study conditions in Fig. 14. The runner
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efficiencies using these jet profiles and the total efficiency (taking into account the injector losses)
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are normalised against the ideal jet results and compared in Fig. 15. The ideal jet simulation uses a
uniform jet of ideal uniform velocity profile at the inlet, with the same flow rate as the real jet
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simulations. The comparison with the ideal jet results shows the importance of the uniformity of the
jet and the impact of the low velocity region in the centre of the jet (Fig. 7. and Fig. 8.), with the ideal
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jet giving results around 0.8% higher runner efficiencies than the real jet cases (Fig. 15).
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Fig. 14. Comparison between 90-50 and 110-70 injector performance for the Turgo setup
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The 110-70 injector showed higher efficiencies than the 90-50 injector, by 0.26% in the 2D
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axisymmetric case and by 0.76% in the 3D case with the guide vanes and bend in the pipe (Fig. 14).
Using the jet profiles from these simulations, the 110-70 profile produced higher runner efficiencies
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than the 90-50 profile in both the 2D and the 3D cases, however the difference was much smaller,
about 0.02% and 0.1%, respectively (Fig. 15). By combining the injector efficiencies with the runner
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efficiencies, the total hydraulic efficiency can be calculated for the Turgo impulse machine (Fig. 15).
This shows that the improved 110-70 injector over the 90-50 injector can increase the overall
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hydraulic efficiency of this Turgo turbine by 0.23% for the 2D straight pipe case and 0.7% for the full
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3D injector case.
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4 Injectors for Pelton turbine
4.1 Stand-alone injector comparison

The full 3D injector from the previous simulation is scaled down to a nozzle diameter of 36 mm and
the inlet pressure was set equal to 150 m to correspond to a Pelton runner model installed at the

such flow cases as shown in the literature [26-30]. The timestep was equal to 10-5 s and the
normalised residuals threshold for convergense was set to 10-4.
In Fig. 18 a snapshot of the jet-bucket interaction is shown as calculated during the simulation of the
Pelton runner, using the jet emerging from the 110-70, 3D injector. The disturbances on the jet
surface can be seen clearly at the first part which is covered by a very dense non-rotating mesh,
whereas closer to the buckets its shape becomes smoother, as it enters the rotating and less dense
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mesh. On the other hand, the deviation of the jet and the secondary vortices due to the bend
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upstream of the nozzle were computed correctly along the entire jet, because the mesh density is
adequate for their modelling.
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Fig. 18. Isosurface at water volume fraction 0.5 for the 3D, 110-70 injector jet profile, coloured by
velocity in the stationary domain – peak torque timestep (left); bucket evacuation phase (right)
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The numerical study was performed using the ANSYS® Fluent® software and as with the Turgo
runner study in section 3.2, four basic jet-runner interacting flow cases were investigated. These
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included; the jet formed by the 2D axisymmetric injector (Fig. 1), by the full 3D injector design
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(Fig. 3), for both nozzle-spear angle combinations respectively. Also, the performance of the runner
with an ideal jet having uniform velocity profile and no secondary flows is modeled for reference.
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The hydraulic efficiency of the above four injectors are compared in Fig. 19, while the corresponding
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hydraulic efficiency (normalised by the reference case efficiency obtained by an ideal jet) of the
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Pelton runner is calculated and compared in Fig. 20. The combined total efficiency of the turbine is
also compared in Fig. 20.
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Fig. 19. Comparison between 90-50 and 110-70 injector performance for the Pelton setup
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Fig. 20. Comparison between 90-50 and 110-70 runner performance for the Pelton setup
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The optimised 110-70 injector shows a substantial gain in efficiency compared to the 90-50 design,
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in both 2D and full 3D simulations (Fig. 19). The results of the runner simulations are more similar
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than the Turgo case because of the more symmetric structure of the jet. However, the total
efficiency gain of the injector/runner system is almost double for the full 3D simulation compared to
the total efficiency using the 2D injector profiles (Fig. 20.).
In addition, the comparison with the ideal jet shows that the most important impact on the
efficiency of the runner is the non-uniform velocity profile of the jet as all Pelton runner cases
performed about 0.5% less than the case using the ideal jet.

such flow cases as shown in the literature [26-30]. The timestep was equal to 10-5 s and the
normalised residuals threshold for convergense was set to 10-4.
In Fig. 18 a snapshot of the jet-bucket interaction is shown as calculated during the simulation of the
Pelton runner, using the jet emerging from the 110-70, 3D injector. The disturbances on the jet
surface can be seen clearly at the first part which is covered by a very dense non-rotating mesh,
whereas closer to the buckets its shape becomes smoother, as it enters the rotating and less dense
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mesh. On the other hand, the deviation of the jet and the secondary vortices due to the bend
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upstream of the nozzle were computed correctly along the entire jet, because the mesh density is
adequate for their modelling.
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The numerical study was performed using the ANSYS® Fluent® software and as with the Turgo
runner study in section 3.2, four basic jet-runner interacting flow cases were investigated. These
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included; the jet formed by the 2D axisymmetric injector (Fig. 1), by the full 3D injector design
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(Fig. 3), for both nozzle-spear angle combinations respectively. Also, the performance of the runner
with an ideal jet having uniform velocity profile and no secondary flows is modeled for reference.
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The hydraulic efficiency of the above four injectors are compared in Fig. 19, while the corresponding
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hydraulic efficiency (normalised by the reference case efficiency obtained by an ideal jet) of the
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Pelton runner is calculated and compared in Fig. 20. The combined total efficiency of the turbine is
also compared in Fig. 20.
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The optimised 110-70 injector shows a substantial gain in efficiency compared to the 90-50 design,
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in both 2D and full 3D simulations (Fig. 19). The results of the runner simulations are more similar
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than the Turgo case because of the more symmetric structure of the jet. However, the total
efficiency gain of the injector/runner system is almost double for the full 3D simulation compared to
the total efficiency using the 2D injector profiles (Fig. 20.).
In addition, the comparison with the ideal jet shows that the most important impact on the
efficiency of the runner is the non-uniform velocity profile of the jet as all Pelton runner cases
performed about 0.5% less than the case using the ideal jet.

On the other hand, the results shown in Fig. 20 reveal that the runner efficiency is almost insensitive
to the the specific nozzle design and numerical simulation technique and that the total efficiency
differences depend mainly on the injector efficiency. Consequently, the only important parameter
affecting the the runner efficiency is the non-uniform velocity profile of the jet (Fig. 16), which
causes about 0.5% higher losses compared to the an ideal jet, as can be seen in Fig. 20.
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5 Conclusions
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Numerical optimisation of the impulse turbine injector design using 2D axisymmetric models was
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carried out in a previous study [23]. In the present work the original and the optimised designs were
taken further for more complex analysis. The nozzle and the spear valve angles of the original
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injector design were 90° and 50° respectively, whereas the corresponding angles of the optimised
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design were steeper: 110° and 70°. These two injector designs were further investigated using the
3D geometry of a complete injector assembly that includes such features as a bend upstream and
spear holding vanes. ot
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The 3D simulations verified the hydraulic efficiency improvement of the optimum injector design
obtained using 2D models and the superiority of the 110-70 nozzle-spear angle combination.
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However the complete injector efficiency gain was 1.5 to 3 times higher than the corresponding 2D
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predictions. Consequently, the 2D modelling can be used as the first stage approximation for the
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numerical design optimization procedure to save computational cost, before applying the full 3D
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flow simulations. The full 3D simulations reveal some important characteristics of the flow through
the injector such as the creation of secondary cross-flow vortices after the pipe bend, their
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interaction with the spear holding vanes causing fragmentation into more vortices of various size
and strength. They also reveal the role of the latter in the observed disturbances of the free jet
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surface and in the angular deviation of the jet axis. The increase of injector efficiency obtained by
using steeper nozzle and spear valve angles can also be explained by the observed reduction of the
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non-symmetric jet structure characteristics which include the secondary velocitiy magnitude and the
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axis deviation.
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The above injectors were also simulated for two different sizes that correspond to operating
conditions of a typical Turgo turbine model, with lower net head (48 m) and a higher head (150 m)
Pelton turbine model. The results showed greater sensitivity of the jet quality (secondary vortices
strength and axis deviation) produced by the low head injector to the upstream geometry, whereas
the higher head injector seems to stabilize the flow.

The combined effect of the flow, head and the nozzle-spear angles on the injector performance is
evident in the results presented. The hydraulic efficiency of the low head, 110-70 injector is about
0.7% higher than the corresponding 90-50 injector, whereas the high head 110-70 injector achieves
only about 0.5% higher efficiency than the corresponding 90-50 design, because the latter already
has an improved performance due to the higher head.
On the other hand, the combined injector-runner simulations reveal some important results
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regarding the total hydraulic efficiency of the impulse turbines. At first, it seems that the non-
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symmetric structure of the jet has negligible effect on the hydraulic efficiency of both Pelton and
Turgo runners. Only the non-uniform pattern of the jet axial velocity profile, that is caused by the
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spear in the centreline region, seems to be responsible for additional losses, compared to an ideal
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jet of uniform velocity. These losses are found to be about 0.5% for the examined Pelton runner, and
0.8% for the Turgo runner again illustrating the greater impact of the velocity profile on the
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efficiency for the lower head Turgo case study.
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Acknowledgements
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The authors would like to thank Lancaster University Renewable Energy Group and Fluid Machinery
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Group, the Laboratory of Hydraulic Turbo Machines at the National Technical University of Athens,
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Gilbert Gilkes & Gordon Ltd and the EU ERASMUS programme for the financial support.
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[29] Barstad, L. F., 2012, "CFD Analysis of a Pelton Turbine," NTNU MSc Thesis.
ed
[30] Zoppe, B., Ch. Pellone, Th. Maître, and P. Leroy, 2006, "Flow analysis inside a Pelton turbine
bucket," Journal of turbomachinery 128(3), pp. 500-511.
py
Figure captions list
Co
Fig. 1. Typical spear valve injector configuration.
ot
tN
Fig. 3. Injector domain geometry using 110-70 nozzle/spear design.

ip
r
sc
Fig. 6. Image of the 3D injector simulation with the reference locations: P - reference plane at the
distance of 2 nozzle opening diameters from the nozzle exit, H – horizontal line for 2D profiles, V –
nu
vertical line for 2D profiles

Ma
the nozzle exit
ed

pt
ce
Ac
timestep

Fig. 16. Comparison of 90-50 injector design jet velocity profiles at a distance of 2 nozzle diameters
Fig. 17. Optimised Pelton runner installed in the Lab [26]
d
ite
ed
py
Table captions list
Co
Table 3. Turgo runner main characteristics
Table 4. Pelton runner main characteristics
ot
tN
r ip
sc
nu
Ma
ed
pt
ce
Ac

d
ite
ed
py
Fig.1. Typical spear valve injector configuration
Co
ot
tN
r ip
sc
nu
Ma
ed
pt
ce
Ac

d
ite
ed
py
Co
ot
tN

r ip
sc
nu
Ma
ed
pt
ce
Ac

d
Fig. 3. Injector domain geometry using 110-70 nozzle/spear design
ite
ed
py
Co
ot
tN
r ip
sc
nu
Ma
ed
pt
ce
Ac

d
ite
ed
py
Co
ot
tN
r ip
sc
nu
Ma
ed
pt
ce
Ac

d
ite
ed
py
Co
ot
tN
r ip
sc
nu
Ma
ed
pt
ce
Ac

d
ite
ed
py
Co
ot
tN
r ip
sc
nu
Ma
ed
pt
ce
Ac

3D Horizontal 3D Verical 2D Axisymmetric

32
30
Water Velocity [m/s]
28
d
26
ite
24
ed
22
py
20
Co
-35 -25 -15 -5 5 15 25 35
Radial Distance [mm]
ot
tN
the nozzle exit

r ip
sc
nu
Ma
ed
pt
ce
Ac


32
30
28
d
26
ite
24
ed
22
py
20
Co
-35 -25 -15 -5 5 15 25 35
ot
tN

r ip
sc
nu
Ma
ed
pt
ce
Ac

d
ite
ed
py
Co
ot
tN
r ip
sc
nu
Ma
ed
pt
ce
Ac

d
ite
ed
py
Co
ot
tN
r ip
sc
nu
Ma
ed
pt
ce
Ac

d
ite
ed
py
Co
ot
tN
r ip
sc
nu
Ma
ed
pt
ce
Ac

d
ite
ed
py
Co
ot
tN
r ip
sc
nu
Ma
ed
pt
ce
Ac

d
ite
ed
py
Co
timestep
ot
tN
r ip
sc
nu
Ma
ed
pt
ce
Ac

d
ite
ed
py
Co
ot
tN
ip
r
sc
nu
Ma
ed
pt
ce
Ac

d
ite
ed
py
Co
ot
tN
ip
r
sc
nu
Ma
ed
pt
ce
Ac


46
44
42
40
d
38
ite
36
ed
34
py
32
30
Co
-12 -10 -8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8 10 12
ot
Fig. 16. Comparison of 90-50 injector design jet velocity profiles at a distance of 2 nozzle diameters
tN

r ip
sc
nu
Ma
ed
pt
ce
Ac

d
ite
ed
py
Fig. 17. Optimised Pelton runner installed in the Lab [26]
Co
ot
tN
r ip
sc
nu
Ma
ed
pt
ce
Ac

d
ite
ed
py
Co
ot
tN
ip
r
sc
nu
Ma
ed
pt
ce
Ac

d
ite
ed
py
Co
ot
tN
ip
r
sc
nu
Ma
ed
pt
ce
Ac

100.0
99.5
99.0
Normalised efficiency [%]
d
98.5
ite
ed
98.0
py
97.5
Co
97.0
2D injector 2D injector Full injector
ot Full injector
90-50 110-70 90-50 110-70
tN
Runner Total
ip
r
sc
nu
Ma
ed
pt
ce
Ac

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Journal of Fluids Engineering.

Received December 05, 2014;

Numerical investigation of the spear valve configuration

performance and efficiency of a real impulse turbine.

Keywords: Impulse Turbine Injectors, Pelton-Turgo runner, Hydraulic Efficiency, Numerical

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2 Injector design and meshing

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Fig. 1. Typical spear valve injector configuration

Fig. 3. Injector domain geometry using 110-70 nozzle/spear design

3 Injectors for a Turgo turbine

3.1 Stand-alone injector comparison

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the nozzle exit

from the nozzle exit

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3.2 Injector combined with a Turgo runner

Fig. 12. Optimised Turgo runner CAD design [8]

Table 1. Turgo runner main characteristics

rotating domain meshes.

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4 Injectors for Pelton turbine

4.1 Stand-alone injector comparison

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[8] Anagnostopoulos, J. S., Ph. K. Koukouvinis, F. G. Stamatelos, and D. E. Papantonis, 2012,

Efficiency Of Pelton Type Turbines," In Proceedings of the HydroVision Conference.

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Fig. 3. Injector domain geometry using 110-70 nozzle/spear design.

vertical line for 2D profiles

from the nozzle exit

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polynomial fit curves

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3D Horizontal 3D Verical 2D Axisymmetric

the nozzle exit

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3D Horizontal 3D Verical 2D Axisymmetric

from the nozzle exit

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3D Horizontal 3D Verical 2D Axisymmetric

from the nozzle exit

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