Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 30 (4) (2016) 1617~1623

www.springerlink.com/content/1738-494x(Print)/1976-3824(Online)
DOI 10.1007/s12206-016-0317-0

The effect of runner blade loading on the performance and internal flow of
a francis hydro turbine model†
Zhenmu Chen1, Patrick Mark Singh1 and Young-Do Choi2,*
1
Graduate School, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mokpo National University, Mokpo 58555, Korea
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Institute of New and Renewable Energy Technology Research,
Mokpo National University, Mokpo 58555, Korea

(Manuscript Received June 3, 2015; Revised November 13, 2015; Accepted November 24, 2015)

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Abstract

As a core component of a hydropower station, hydro turbines play a vital role in the integration of a power station. Research on the
technology of hydro turbine is continuously increasing with the development of water electricity. It is effective and successful to design a
Francis turbine runner blade with good performance by one-dimensional hydraulic design method. For the one-dimensional hydraulic
design, the runner blade angle at leading and trailing edges can be defined by calculation of Euler’s head. Design of the runner blade
profile at several cross sections is needed to design a runner shape. In this study, there are three different blade loadings conducted to
compare the internal flow characteristics and performance. The result shows that the front loading achieves the best efficiency in com-
parison to other loadings, which is good at suppressing the loss at draft tube.
Keywords: Francis turbine; Blade loading; Loss analysis; Internal flow; Performance
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three typical types of profile angle distributions. It is named

1. Introduction
front loading, middle loading and rear loading. The main dif-
Francis turbine is the most widely used turbine in the world. ference between the front loading and rear loading is the shape
It has a wide head range. The efficiency of the Francis turbine of the blade profile angle. For the front loading the shape of
can be as high as 90%. As a core component of a hydropower the blade profile is convex in nature near the leading edge and
station, hydraulic turbine plays a vital role in the integration of concave near the trailing edge. However, for the rear loading
a station. Research on the technology of hydraulic turbine is follows reverse distribution of the front loading. The middle
continuously increasing with the development of water elec- loading is almost linearly distributed from leading edge to
tricity [1-8]. trailing edge. This trend is common for all sections of crown,
It is effective and successful to design a Francis turbine run- medium and shroud.
ner blade with good performance by one-dimensional hydrau-
lic design method. For the one-dimensional hydraulic design, 2. Turbine model and numerical methods
the runner blade angle at leading and trailing edges can be
2.1 Turbine model design
defined by calculation of Euler’s head. Design of the runner
blade profile at several cross sections is needed to design a In this study, a Francis turbine model with the specific
runner shape. speed of Ns = 120 m-kW was selected to investigate the effect
Jeon et al. [8] investigated the flow characteristics in a Fran- of blade angle distribution on the performance. The design
cis turbine with various blade profiles of NACA 65 and point of the Francis turbine model is at H = 35 m for the effec-
NACA 16 series. However, in order to determine a runner tive head, Q = 0.25 m3/s for the water flow rate and the rota-
blade profile, the blade profile angle distribution from leading tional speed is N = 1200 min-1. The inlet diameter of the run-
edge to trailing edge should also be determined. The runner ner is D1 = 310 mm and the outlet diameter of runner is De =
blade profile is different with different profile angle distribu- 250 mm. The number of runner blade is Z = 15. In addition,
tion. There are three different kinds of blade profiles with the number of guide vane is Zg = 16, and the number of stay
*
vane is also Zs = 16.
Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 61 450 2419, Fax.: +82 61 452 6376
E-mail address: ydchoi@mokpo.ac.kr Fig. 1 shows the flow chart of Francis turbine runner blade
†
Recommended by Associate Editor Seongwon Kang design. There are two redesign processes in this design flow
© KSME & Springer 2016
1618 Z. Chen et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 30 (4) (2016) 1617~1623

Fig. 1. Flow chart of Francis turbine runner blade design.

Fig. 3. Three blade loading distributions on the crown, medium and

Fig. 2. Full flow passage of Francis turbine model for CFD analysis.
shroud cross sections.

chart. The turbine head is controlled by the guide vane open-

ing under the condition of design point. The outflow angle
from runner outlet is controlled by the blade loading and blade
outlet angle. Moreover, the blade outlet angle can be calcu-
lated by the Euler head equation. Therefore, it is necessary to
investigate the effect of the blade loading on the performance
and internal flow. In order to predict the performance and
internal flow of the Francis turbine model more accurately, a
full flow passage is created for the CFD analysis as shown in
Fig. 2.
There are three cases with different blade loading distribu-
tion on three cross sections as shown in Fig. 3. It can be seen
that blade distribution angles are largely close to the leading Fig. 4. Blade surface modeling with three different blade loadings.
edge at crown, medium and shroud cross sections for the run-
ner blade with front loading. The blade distribution angles
have a contrary distribution at the three cross sections for the loadings. The blade length of front loading is the longest and
rear loading. The blade angle distributions of middle loading that of the rear loading is the shortest.
are almost linear from the leading edge to the trailing edge. In
order to compare with different blade loading on the perform- 2.2 Numerical methods
ance and internal flow characteristics on the Francis turbine,
the other parameters are kept same. Fig. 4 shows the compari- Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis is a very use-
son of the blade surface modeling with three different blade ful tool for predicting hydro machinery performance at vari-
 Z. Chen et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 30 (4) (2016) 1617~1623 1619

100 80 0.28

90 79 0.27

80 78 0.26

70 77 0.25

Output power, P (kW)

Flow rate, Q (m3/s)

Efficiency, h (%)
60 76 0.24

50 75 0.23

40 74 0.22

30 73 0.21

20 72 0.20 Efficiency, h
Flow rate, Q
10 71 0.19 Output power, P

0 70 0.18
De310_Front
Front loading De310_Middle
Middle loading De310_Rear
Rear loading
Fig. 5. Fine hexahedral numerical grids of the runner.
Fig. 6. Performance curves with three different loading.
ous operating conditions [9-12]. Commercial code of ANSYS
10
CFX [13] is employed to predict the characteristics of the
Francis turbine with different blade loading. The general con- 9

nection was set as the frozen rotor condition between the rota- 8
tional area and the fixed area in the flow field for the steady 7 Front loading
state calculation. The total pressure boundary condition was Middle loading
6 Rear loading
HLoss/H (%)
applied at the inlet of the calculation domain, and the static
5
pressure was set for the outlet of the domain. According to the
previous study [14, 15], the Shear stress transport (SST) turbu- 4

lence model is adopted as turbulence model, which has been 3

well known to estimate both separation and vortex occurrence 2
on the wall of a complicated blade shape. The mesh depend-
1
ence is done for validation test of the numerical method. The
efficiency of turbine becomes constant after the mesh number 0

excess of 1.1×107 elements. Therefore, the mesh number of Casing

inlet pipe Stay vaneGuide vane Leakage Runner Draft tube
and Casing
about 1.1×107 elements is selected for all the cases, for which Fig. 7. Loss analysis on the each component.
the y+ is about 48 for runner blade surface. Fig. 5 shows the
fine numerical grids of the runner. The extended inlet pipe,
stay vane, guide vane and draft tube of the turbine are made of observed at runner blade with front loading. The efficiency of
hexahedral numerical grids. The casing part of the turbine runner blade with rear loading drops drastically. However, the
fluid domain is made of tetrahedral grids. flow rate of the front loading shows lower than that of rear
loading.
3. Results and discussion
3.2 Loss analysis
3.1 Performance curves
For the loss analysis, the equation is defined as following:
Considering only the hydraulic loss, the turbine efficiency is
calculated by the following Eq. (1): H loss =
Dptotal
(2)
rg
Tw Tw
h= (1) Dptotal -
r gH total Q Q
H loss runner = (3)
rg
where η is the turbine efficiency; T is the torque on the runner;
ω is the angular speed of runner rotation on its own axis; ρ is where Hloss is the pressure loss head for casing, stay vane,
the water density; g is the gravitational acceleration; Q is the guide vane, leakage and draft tube, Hloss runner is the pressure
flow rate; Htotal is total head of turbine. loss head for runner passage, Δptotal is the total pressure differ-
Fig. 6 presents the performance curves by the three different ence between each component.
loadings. As the total pressure boundary condition was applied Fig. 7 presents the loss analysis for each component. The
for inlet, and the static pressure was set for the outlet, the head flow passage is same for different blade loadings, except for
of the result is kept to the design head. The best efficiency is runner passage. The loss distribution on casing, stay vane,
1620 Z. Chen et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 30 (4) (2016) 1617~1623

60
Blade inlet angle=55.9
50

40

b1 (°)
30

20 Front loading
Middle loading
Rear loading
10

0
Crown Middle
Medium Shroud

Fig. 9. Blade inlet flow angle distribution on the three cross sections.

Fig. 8. Diagram of the velocity triangle at blade inlet and outlet. 60

guide vane and leakage part are similar by different blade
loading. It can be seen that the runner passage with front load-
ing causes the larger loss than that with rear loading. However,
the front loading runner has the minimum loss on the draft
tube passage, and the loss increases significantly on the draft
tube passage by the rear loading. This is why the efficiency of
rear loading is lower in comparison to other blade loadings.
The front loading blade is good at suppressing loss at draft
tube, but the loss at runner passage increases relatively slightly.
3.3 Velocity triangle analysis
Fig. 8 shows the diagram of the velocity triangle of the wa-
ter at the blade inlet and outlet. α is the absolute angle that is
between absolute velocity (V) and peripheral velocity (U). β is
the relative angle that is between relative velocity (W) and
peripheral velocity (U). According to the related study results
[17-20], for the maximum efficiency, the relative angle at inlet
should be close to the inlet angle of blade. For no kinetic en-
ergy loss at outlet of runner, the absolute angle (α) of outflow
should be close to 90˚.
Fig. 9 indicates the blade inlet flow angle distribution on the
three cross sections. The blade inlet flow angles of the three
loadings are lower than blade inlet angle. The blade inlet flow
angle of rear loading is close to the blade inlet angle. However,
the front loading causes the blade inlet flow angle to move
farther away from the blade inlet angle, which means that
there is the largest incidence loss at the blade inlet by the run-
ner blade with front loading. This is why the loss analysis
shows the runner passage of front loading has the largest loss.
Fig. 10 indicates the blade outlet flow angle distribution on
the three cross sections. It can be seen that only front loading
outflow angle is almost matched with blade outlet angle (βb2)
at three cross sections. If the outflow angle does not match
with blade angle, a separation flow occurs between flow and
blade, which causes the loss to increase at draft tube. The out-
flow angle of rear loading moves farther away from the blade
Front loading
50 Middle loading
Rear loading
40
b2 (°)
30 bb2=28.29
bb2=23.27
20
bb2=17.96
10
0
Crown Middle
Medium Shroud
Fig. 10. Blade outlet flow angle distribution on the three sections.
outlet angle. That is why the front loading loss at draft tube is
the minimum, and the rear loading loss at draft tube is very
large.
3.4 Velocity and pressure distribution in the runner passage
There are three locations selected for the velocity and pres-
sure distribution analysis as shown in Fig. 11. Those three
locations are on the surface span of 0.5.
Fig. 12 is the figure of tangential velocity distribution in the
runner passage from inlet to outlet. The tangential velocity of
rear loading at outlet location is far from the 0 m/s, but that of
front and middle loading is close to 0 m/s. The runner inlet
pressure of front loading is slightly higher than that of other
loadings. However, the runner outlet pressure is similar for the
three loadings. The pressure energy transfer to output power
by front loading is slightly higher than other loadings as
shown in Fig. 13.
Fig. 14 shows the streamline distribution on the blade sur-
face at pressure and suction sides. The secondary flow at the
pressure side near the leading edge cannot be suppressed by
the blade loading modification. There is mixing loss at the
pressure side. The secondary flow occurs by the centrifugal
 Z. Chen et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 30 (4) (2016) 1617~1623 1621

Fig. 11. Schematic view of the velocity and pressure measurement

location.

20

18
Inlet location
Front loading
16 Middle loading
Rear loading Fig. 14. Streamline distribution on the blade surface.
14

12 Middle location
Front loading
Vu (m/s)

10
Middle loading
8 Rear loading

4 Outlet location
Front loading
2
Middle loading
0 Rear loading

0 60 120 180 240 300 360

Circumferential location (°)

Fig. 12. Tangential velocity distribution in the runner passage.

220
Inlet location
200 Front loading Fig. 15. Schematic view of outflow pattern measurement location.
180 Middle loading
Rear loading
160
0.50
140
120
0.45
p (kPa)

100 Middle location 0.40

80 Front loading 0.35
Middle loading
60
Rear loading 0.30
40
Vu2 / U

0.25
20 Outlet location
0 Front loading 0.20
Middle loading
-20 0.15
Rear loading
0 60 120 180 240 300 360 0.10
Circumferential location (°) 0.05 Front loading
0.00 Middle loading
Fig. 13. Pressure distribution in the runner passage. Rear loading
-0.05
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0
force, which is acceptable as long as the loss at runner passage Relative location (X)

is low. However, the streamline of front loading at the suction Fig. 16. Tangential velocity distribution.
side is relatively smooth in comparison to that of rear loading.

at the draft tube inlet. The tangential velocity is remained in

3.5 Outflow pattern
In order to investigate the loss in draft tube by different
blade loadings, the outflow pattern at the inlet of draft tube is
plotted.
Fig. 15 shows the diagram of outflow pattern measurement
location at the draft tube inlet. The location of the flow pattern
is measured from the center of the draft tube (Relative location
x = 0) to the draft tube side (Relative location x = 1).
Fig. 16 is the graph of tangential velocity (Vu2) distribution
the draft tube. This is kinetic energy loss. The tangential ve-
locity distribution of front loading and middle loading at draft
tube is similar. The tangential velocity distribution of rear
loading increases at the location of farther away from center,
which means that the loss at draft tube increases.
Fig. 17 shows the meridional velocity (Vm) distribution at
the draft tube inlet. The meridional velocity of front and mid-
dle loading has a similar distribution from x = 0 to x = 1.
However, the reverse meridional velocity occurs at the rear
1622 Z. Chen et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 30 (4) (2016) 1617~1623

7 Higher tangential velocity of rear loading in draft tube in-

6 creases the friction loss. Reverse velocity occurs at rear load-
5
ing, which also increases the mixing loss in the draft tube.
4

3 Acknowledgment
Vm (m/s)

2 Front loading
Middle loading
This work was supported by the New and Renewable En-
1 Rear loading ergy of the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation
0 and Planning (KETEP) grant funded by the Korea Govern-
-1 ment Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (No. 2013T1002
-2 00079). Moreover, the authors are very grateful to Professor
-3 Kazuyoshi Miyagawa of WASEDA University, Japan, for his
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 valuable advices.
Relative location (X)

Fig. 17. Meridional velocity distribution. Nomenclature------------------------------------------------------------------------

△ptotal : Total pressure difference
D1 : Runner inlet diameter
De : Runner outlet diameter
g : Gravitational acceleration
H : Effective head
Hloss : Pressure loss head
Hloss runner : Runner pressure loss head
H total : Turbine total head
Ns : Specific speed
N : Rotational speed
p : Static pressure
Q : Flow rate
T : Torque
U : Peripheral velocity
Fig. 18. Velocity vectors on the draft tube center plane.
V : Absolute velocity
Vm : Meridional velocity
loading runner. This means that the loss increases drastically Vu : Tangential velocity
in the draft tube. The comparison of velocity vectors on the W : Relative velocity
draft tube center plane between front and rear loadings are Z : Runner blade number
shown in Fig. 18. It can be seen that the velocity of rear load- Zg : Guide vane number
ing near the side wall of the draft tube is higher than that of the Zs : Stay vane number
front loading. High velocity will also increase the friction loss. α : Absolute angle
The outflow velocity from runner passage by rear loading is β : Relative angle
nonuniform from crown to shroud, where the reverse flow βb2 : Blade outlet angle
occurs in the draft tube and increases the mixing loss in the η : Turbine efficiency
draft tube. ρ : Water density
ω : Angular speed

4. Conclusions
The front loading has the best efficiency in this Francis tur-
bine model, which is good at suppressing the loss at draft tube.
The rear loading can suppress loss at the runner passage effec-
tively. However, the loss of the rear loading at the draft tube
increases drastically, which is unwanted in the turbine per-
formance improvement.
The blade outflow angle of front loading is matched with
the blade outlet angle, for which the loss is relatively low at
the draft tube. However, the blade inlet flow angle of front
loading is slightly farther away from blade inlet angle.
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Zhenmu Chen received his B.E. degree
from Wenzhou University, China, and
his M.S. degree from Mokpo National
University, Korea. He is currently a
doctorate candidate in the Graduate
School, Department of Mechanical En-
gineering, Mokpo National University.
His research interest includes fluid ma-
chinery and new & renewable energy.
Patrick Mark Singh received his
B.E.Tech. degree from The University
of the South Pacific and his M.S. degree
from Mokpo National University, Korea.
He is currently a doctorate candidate in
the Graduate School, Department of
Mechanical Engineering, Mokpo Na-
tional University. His research interest
includes fluid machinery and new & renewable energy.
Young-Do Choi received his B.S. and
M.S. degrees from Korea Maritime
University, and his Dr.Eng. from Yoko-
hama National University, Japan. Since
2009, he has been a professor at De-
partment of Mechanical Engineering of
Mokpo National University, Korea. His
research interests include fluid machin-
ery and new & renewable energies, such as ocean energy,
wind power, hydro power.