EN208 INNOVATIVE PROJECT

Study on Pelton Wheel Turbine

Made By:
Amishi Jain (2K19/EN/009)
Shambhavi Rathore (2K19/EN/052)
 OBJECTIVE

Our aim is to study Pelton Wheel water turbine and develop a comprehensive
report on it to further find its applications to solve real life problems.

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 INTRODUCTION

▸ The Pelton wheel is an impulse-type water turbine that was invented in the
1870s by Lester Allan Pelton- an American inventor.
▸ It extracts energy from the impulse of moving water.
▸ Earlier variations of the impulse turbines have been less efficient than the Pelton
wheel turbine.
▸ Pelton turbine is commonly used in hydroelectric generation in geographical
locations where high waterhead is available but volume flows are small.
▸ Since the Pelton wheel rotates in air, the action of the water and wheel rotation
is easily observed.

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INTRODUCTION

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 METHODOLOGY

PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3

Study the Pelton Wheel turbine
and form an in-depth
understanding of its working and
mechanism
● Study of the various areas where Pelton
wheel turbine can be used for its higher
efficiency.
● Case study of existing experimental work
being conducted using the Pelton wheel
turbine with the reported findings
Attempt to suggest some
applications of the Pelton Wheel
turbine like for renewable energy
or RO systems.

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 LITERATURE REVIEW
▸ The most common application of the Pelton turbine in the world today is for power
generation.
▸ Widely used in the areas with a steep gradient of water flow or where reservoirs can be
constructed to generate the required head.
▸ Working range = low to medium flow (0.1–11000 L per second)
medium to high head (30–1000 m)
▸ A report from World Energy Council estimates the unutilized global potential for
hydropower at 10,000 TWh/year.
▸ Efficiency of the turbine is taken to be around 82–85% in lab conditions, but
mathematically, up to 96% of the energy can be harnessed.
▸ If this gap can be bridged, there will be 10% increase in the energy generated from the same
resources without major changes and with added possibilities of improved irrigation, water
supply or flood control

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 LITERATURE REVIEW
PARTS OF A PELTON WHEEL:

❏ Nozzle and Flow Regulating Arrangement: The water from source is transferred
through penstock to which end a nozzle is provided. Using this nozzle the high
speed water jet can be formed. To control the water jet from nozzle, a movable
needle spear is arranged inside the nozzle. The spear will move backward and
forward in axial direction. When it is moved forward the flow will reduce or
stopped and when it is moved backward the flow will increase.

❏ Runner and Buckets: A Pelton turbine consists of a runner, which is a circular

disc on the periphery of which a number of buckets are mounted with equal
spacing between them. The buckets mounted are either double hemispherical or
double ellipsoidal shaped. A dividing wall called splitter is provided for each
bucket which separates the bucket into two equal parts. The buckets are generally
made of cast iron or stainless steel or bronze depending upon the head of inlet of
Pelton turbine.

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 LITERATURE REVIEW
PARTS OF A PELTON WHEEL:

❏ Casing: The whole arrangement of runner and buckets, inlet and braking
jets are covered by the Casing. Casing of Pelton turbine does not perform
any hydraulic actions but prevents the splashing of water while working
and also helps the water to discharge to the tail race.

❏ Braking Jet: Braking jet is used to stop the running wheel when it is not
working. This situation arises when the nozzle inlet is closed with the help
of spear then the water jet is stopped on the buckets. But Due to inertia, the
runner will not stop revolving even after complete closure of inlet nozzle.
To stop this, a brake nozzle is provided as shown in figure 1. The brake
nozzle directs the jet of water on the back of buckets to stop the wheel. The
jet directed by brake nozzle is called braking jet.

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 LITERATURE REVIEW
WORKING OF A PELTON WHEEL:

1. The water is transferred from the high head source through a long conduit called Penstock.
2. Nozzle arrangement at the end of penstock helps the water to accelerate and it flows out as a high speed jet
with high velocity and discharge at atmospheric pressure.
3. The jet will hit the splitter of the buckets which will distribute the jet into two halves of bucket and the
wheel starts revolving.
4. The kinetic energy of the jet is reduced when it hits the bucket and also due to spherical shape of buckets
the directed jet will change its direction and takes U-turn and falls into tail race.
5. In general, the inlet angle of jet is in between 1o to 3o, after hitting the buckets the deflected jet angle is in
between 165o to 170o.
6. The water collected in tail race should not submerge the Pelton wheel in any case.
7. To generate more power, two Pelton wheels can be arranged to a single shaft or two water jets can be
directed at a time to a single Pelton wheel.

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 LITERATURE REVIEW
USE OF PELTON WHEEL FOR ENERGY RECOVERY IN RO SYSTEMS:

The Energy Recovery Turbine System takes advantage of the high pressure energy which remains in the reject liquid concentrate (brine)
from the reverse osmosis process and which is normally wasted in other systems. The high pressure concentrate is fed into a Pelton wheel
type hydraulic turbine which then produces a rotating power output used to assist the main electric motor in driving the reciprocating pump.

This concept allows a smaller less costly motor to be utilised and saves a very considerable proportion of the power and, therefore, cost
necessary to drive the pump.

The system is very easy to operate with only one control, comprising the adjustable input nozzle of the turbine, needed to set and maintain
the required operating conditions. The plant is started up with the nozzle fully open and the pressure requirement of the system is achieved
by gradually closing the nozzle either by using a handwheel, or automatically by servomoter, using a signal from the plant control system.

The nozzle directs a jet of the high pressure concentrate onto the buckets of the Pelton wheel causing the wheel and shaft assembly to rotate.
The design of the Pelton wheel and nozzle is optimised to ensure that almost all the kinetic energy of the jet is transferred into rotating
mechanical energy enabling the turbine to operate at high efficiency with the liquid reject being discharged at atmospheric pressure.

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 RESULTS
▸ A laboratory-scale Pelton turbine for hydroelectric generation has been constructed and used in certain
universities for research in the field of renewable energy. These papers have been consulted and the
following findings have been reported.

▸ The turbine is constructed of inexpensive components, most of which can be found in standard science
laboratories. From the experimental results, the turbine was found to have a maximum mechanical
efficiency of 0.47 +/- 0.02 for a water flow rate of 0.17 litre/s. The Pelton turbine and apparatus
demonstrate the principles of hydropower and are well suited in the education of students of renewable
energy.

▸ According to the results, as the water volume flow is increased, the maximum mechanical efficiency of
the turbine occurs at higher rotation speeds.

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