Kaplan Turbine

Features
• Reaction type of turbine.
• Used for low head up to 3 to 30 m.
• Specific speed of Kaplan turbine is
550 to 830 rpm.
• Consists of 3 to 6 blades.
• The water strikes in axial direction
• The guide vans are used to control
speed of water.
• The draft tube is useful to
discharge the water to tail race
level.
Components of Kaplan Turbine
• Scroll casing
• Guide Vanes
• Runner
• Draft Tube
Scroll Casing
• It is a spiral type of casing that
has decreasing cross section
area
• The water first enters into the
scroll casing and then it moves
through it to the guide vanes
and finally to the runner blades.
• It protects the runner, runner
blades guide vanes and other
internal parts of the turbine
from an external damage.
Guide Vanes
• To direct the water to the runner
blades smoothly by decreasing its
swirl velocity.
• The guides are adjustable
• Its opening and closing depends
upon the demand of power
requirement.
• In case of more power output
requirements, it opens wider to
allow more water to hit the blades
of the rotor and when low power
output requires it closes itself to
cease the flow of water.
Runner
• rotating part of the turbine
• Its shaft is connected to the
shaft of the generator.
• The blades of the Kaplan turbine
has twist along its length.
• The runner blades has twist
along its length in order to have
always optimum angle of attack
for all cross section of blades to
achieve greater efficiency.
Draft Tube
• It is a tube which is used to
increases the pressure of the
fluid or water that exits the
turbine.
• It has increasing cross section
area.
• It is used only in reaction
turbine.
• It increases the pressure of the
water that leaves the runner
blades.
Contd..
• It converts the kinetic energy of
the water into pressure energy
as it passes through draft tube
and the pressure of the water
increases.
• The draft tube has to increases
the pressure of the water upto
such an extent that it must
always greater than the pressure
of tail race water and prevents
the back flow of water from the
tail race to the turbine.