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Procedia
Engineering
Procedia Engineering
Procedia 00 (2011)
Engineering 000–000
15 (2011) 4874 – 4879
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia

Advanced in Control Engineeringand Information Science

The Optimum Structural Design for Spiral Case in Hydraulic

Turbine
Liying Wang a , Dehua Wei
College of Water Conservancy and Hydropower, Hebei University of Engineering, Handan 056021, China

Abstract

According to the design principle of the spiral case, the wrap angle is set at 245 degrees based on the basic
parameters of the hydraulic turbine, and the hydraulic calculation of the spiral case is taken on, then the size of each
part is calculated, finally the diffuser single line figure and section are mapped out. This design process can be
programmed to minimize the design time and improve the design precision.

© 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.

Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of [CEIS 2011]
Keywords: spiral case, hydraulic calculation, wrap angle

1. Introduction

For large and medium reactive turbine, in order to make the water from pressure conduit
axisymmetricly enter into the distributor which has little head loss, so the spiral was set between the end
of pressure conduit and stay ring, because its section of spiral is decreasing from import to end, at last, it
formed the snail's shell, so it says scroll in project. According to the type, head, flow of turbine, the type
of the spiral case is also different [1, 2]. There are currently two kinds in engineering: one kind is concrete
spiral case, the working head of this spiral case is lower (H < 40m), the flow in concrete spiral case is
greater; the section of this spiral case usually adopts trapezoidal structure. Another characteristic of
concrete spiral is that the angle is not large, mainly ϕ = 180 0 − 270 0 , commonly ϕ = 180 0 . Another is

* Corresponding author. Tel.:+0-086-015830086523.

E-mail address: 2000wangly@163.com.

1877-7058 © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2011.08.908
2 Liying Wang and Dehua
Author name /Wei / Procedia
Procedia Engineering
Engineering 15 (2011)
00 (2011) 4874 – 4879
000–000 4875

spiral, its working head is more than 40m, and the flow is slightly small and, the wrap angle is very big,
mainly ϕ = 340 0 − 350 0 , the wrap angle is 345 in most of the hydropower station currently. Although the
type of the spiral case is different, the average flow velocity in spiral section must be larger in order to
induce the size of the spiral case and head loss, so the import average flow velocity should be choosen
reasonably, according to some running turbine and statistical data, the import average flow velocity can be
choosen easily [3, 4].
After the style and the spiral import section size are determined, the sizes of the middle in ϕ i section
need to be determined, it is necessary to study the movement law in spiral. The water formed a rotation
after into the spiral to make the water has ring quantity before entering the stay ring which flow the stay
ring, the quantity of the ring is very smoothly and the head loss is little. There are two types according to
the movement trend: radial velocity v r and tangential velocity vτ , when the water into the stay ring,
according to the requirements of axisymmetric inflow, radial velocity v r should meet for a constant, its
size is:
Q max
vr = (1)
π D a b0
Where, D a is the diameter of guide vane, b0 is the height of guide Vance, Q max is maximum quoted
flow. And the tangential velocity vτ have a different motion law, citing the existing hypothesis: speed
torque vτ r = C , this assumption show that tangential velocity vτ is decrease according to the axis radius
r . This paper adopts the above assumptions to solve, the friction role the viscosity does not take into
account.

2. The Hydraulic Calculation of Spiral Case [5, 6]

2.1. Structure calculation

Import section velocity vo K =0.89， vo = K H r = 0.89 × 61 = 6.95 ( m / s )

(2)
Import section flow： Qo = ϕ o Qr = 345 × 189.23 = 181.35 ( m /s)
o
3

360 o
360 o

(3)
Import section area： F = Qo = 181.35 = 26.09 ( m 2 )
vo 6.95
o

(4)
Import section radius ρ o ： ρ o = Fo = 26.09 = 2.88 (m)
π π
(5)
bo
The height Center between Disc edge and guide Vance h : h = +Δ
2
(6)
4876 Liying Wangname
Author and Dehua Wei /Engineering
/ Procedia Procedia Engineering 15 (2011) 4874 – 4879
00 (2011) 000–000 3

bo
where bo ——the height of guide vane, =0.25 ， bo =0.25×4.6=1.15 (m), Δ ——Error， Δ =0.2 ,
D1
1.15
h= + 0.2 = 0.775 (m).
2
Da
The radius of stay ring dished edge ro ： ro = +K
2
(7)
7.1
Da =7.1m, K =0.15 m , ro = + 0.15 = 3.7 (m).
2
Import section center distance： ao = ro + ρ o − h = 3.7 + 2.88 2 − 0.775 2 =6.47 (m)
2 2

(8)
Import section diameter R : R = ao + ρ o =6.47 + 2.88=9.35(m)
(9)
Spiral coefficient C and spiral constant K: 345 =510
6.47 − 6.47 2 − 2.882

(10)

CQr 510 × 189.23

K= = =42.69
720π 720π

(11)

2.2. Circular cross-section calculation

The involved parameters are defined as:

ϕi ϕi
χ= + 2ro − h2
C C (12)
ai = ro + χ (13)
ρi = χ 2 + h 2 (14)
Ri = ai + ρ i (15)

Take different values, according to the above four type, the calculated result recorded in table 1.

NO. φ
i
φ
2r i
0C r o
φ
2r i
0C h
2 φ
2r i − h 2
oC
4 Liying Wang and Dehua
Author name /Wei / Procedia
Procedia Engineering
Engineering 15 (2011)
00 (2011) 4874 – 4879
000–000 4877

1 345 o 0.68 3.7 5.03 0.6 2.10

2 330o 0.65 3.7 4.81 0.6 2.05

3 315 o 0.62 3.7 4.59 0.6 2.00

4 300° 0.59 3.7 4.37 0.6 1.94

5 285o 0.56 3.7 4.14 0.6 1.88

6 270o 0.53 3.7 3.92 0.6 1.82

7 255° 0.50 3.7 3.70 0.6 1.76

8 240° 0.47 3.7 3.48 0.6 1.70

9 225° 0.44 3.7 3.26 0.6 1.63

10 210° 0.41 3.7 3.03 0.6 1.56

Table 1. Round sectional dimensions of the spiral

2.3. The Calculation of elliptical section

When circular cross section p<S, the round radius of spiral section cannot tangent stay ring dished
edge, then tangent oval section should be replaced [7, 8]
h (16)
S=
sin(90o − α )
Where a is the cone angle of stay ring on dished side, a=55。。
0.775
S= = 1.36
sin(90o − 45o )
Therefore, when φi =105°，pi =1.33<S, the circular section of the spiral transit to the elliptical
section, every φi takes a value after15°, each component dimensions of elliptical section is as follows:
Elliptic section short radius ρ 2 ： ρ 2 = 1.045 A + 0.81L2 − 1.345L (17)
A = πρi2 + d 2tgα (㎡) (18)
1 ϕi ϕ ϕ (19)
ρi = + ( i ) 2 ctg 2α + 2rRa i
sin α C C C
Where, A is the equivalent area of circular cross-section, ρi is the area of circular cross-section
d = ra − Ra (20)
h 0.775
Ra = r0 − = 3.7 − = 3.16 ra =2.78 (m) , ra = r0 − k ' , k ' =0.1~0.2， k ' = 0.2 , so
tan α tan 55°
ra = 3.7 − 0.2 = 3.5m , d=3.5-3.16=0.34m
Ellipsoid long radius ρ1 ：
ρ1 = L + ρ 2 − ρ 2ctgα (21)
L=
h (22)
sin α
4878 Liying Wangname
Author and Dehua Wei /Engineering
/ Procedia Procedia Engineering 15 (2011) 4874 – 4879
00 (2011) 000–000 5

Elliptic section center distance a ： a = R a + 1 .22 ρ 2

(23)
The outer oval section R ： R = a + ρ1
(24)
The calculated data list as shown in table 2.

Table 2. The calculated data respectively

j
NO. φ i ρ=
φi
( cot 2 α +
2 Ra C
+
1
)
A = πρ 2 +
ρ2 ρ1 α R
i C C φi sin α d 2 tan α

1 105o 0.21 1.42 6.50 1.46 1.39 4.94 6.33

2 90o 0.18 1.29 5.40 1.24 1.32 4.67 5.99

3 75o 0.15 1.16 4.40 1.03 1.26 4.42 5.68

4 60 o 0.12 1.02 3.44 0.80 1.19 4.14 5.33

5 45 o 0.09 0.87 2.55 0.56 1.12 3.84 4.96

6 30° 0.06 0.69 1.66 0.29 1.04 3.51 4.55

7 15 o 0.03 0.47 0.86 0.10 0.98 3.28 4.26

3. Design Results

According to Table 1 and Table 2, the plane and single-lane figures were mapped, as shown in Fig. 1
and Fig. 2:

Fig.1. The plane figure of spiral case

Fig. 2. The single-lane figure of spiral case

6 Liying Wang and Dehua
Author name /Wei / Procedia
Procedia Engineering
Engineering 15 (2011)
00 (2011) 4874 – 4879
000–000 4879

4. Conclusions

In this paper, the different sections of spiral case are taken on optimized calculation, the optimization
results are concluded, these formulas have higher precision, in the later study, these formulas should be
structured to programming language in order to improve design speed and design precision.

References

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[4] Chang jin-shim. Turbine operation.beijing: Hydraulic power press, 1983.
[5] Hubei water conservancy survey and design institute. Small hydropower mechanical and electrical design manual.beijing:
Hydraulic power press,1982.
[6] Zhang Yun-liang. Dynamic analysis of spiral casings and powerhouses of large-scale hydropower stations, Advances in
Science and Technology of Water Resources, 2010, 30(6):20-25.
[7] Pei Wei, Mo li-xin, Zhang yong. Improved Design for Welding Exhaust Volute after Tandem Cascade, Compressor Blower
& Fan Technology, 2010, 3:21-25.
[8] Peng xiao-dong, Ju xiao-ming. A new calculation method of spiral equivalent, Sichuan Water Resources, 2010.3, 53-57.