%PDF-1.4 Sign up and check out our SimScale blog for much more! By clicking Sign Up I agree to SimScale's Privacy Policy, Your hub for everything you need to know about simulation and the world of CAE, By subscribing I agree to SimScale's Privacy Policy, How to Optimize a Francis Turbine Design with CFD. Our conceptual design software is the most user-friendly system available on the market through its unrivaled, intuitive, and user-friendly design process, CFturbo software empowers every user, regardless of experience. Viable designs were chosen by ensuring the outlet mass flow rate approximately matched the original design point. Using fluid flow (CFD) simulation in particular allows you to explore the localized conditions. Once youve established what kind of water pressure you can harness, you can then decide if an enclosed reaction turbine design like the Francis turbine or an open impulse turbine design, like the Pelton turbine is a better fit. The Kaplan turbine resembles a propeller and features adjustable blades to maximize efficiency over a range of water and pressure levels. Figure 9 and Figure 10 show the pressure streamlines and velocity streamlines within the flow path of the device, respectively. 2y.-;!KZ ^i"L0- @8(r;q7Ly&Qq4j|9 Choosing the optimal turbine design often comes down to one thing; the amount of head and flow rate accessible to you. These modern equivalents of the water wheel have been used for over 135 years for industrial power generation, and more recently hydropower energy generation. ), Industry Person of the Week- Nicole Osborne, CFturbo, Inc. Partners with Mechanical Solutions, Inc. to Automate Turbomachinery Design Exploration, CFturbo, Inc. Launches Major Software Update, Hydraulic Design of Multistage Pumps (Part 3) NPSHr Optimization, Axial Flow Check Valves for Pumps and Compressors, Proven Seal Technologies for CO2 Capture and Supercritical Applications, Accurate & Reliable Pumps for Lease Automatic Custody Transfer (LACT) Units, Liquefied Natural Gas [A Complete Flow Control Portfolio]. Water/Wastewater 6. 173201. Low upstream head losses and the downstream reduction of swirl are imperative and should focus on optimization. % Conceptual Design Key Results 7. The Francis turbine was invented in the mid-19th century by engineer James Bichens Francis to produce hydroelectric power. Marine 3. x- [ 0}y)7ta>jT7@t`q2&6ZL?_yxg)zLU*uSkSeO4?c. R -25 S>Vd`rn~Y&+`;A4 A9 =-tl`;~p Gp| [`L` "AYA+Cb(R, *T2B- 14 0 obj The head loss is relatively high within the stay vanes, which could be a focus for future optimization. Water pressure created from naturally or artificially flowing water exists as the energy source for water turbines. Employee-driven initiatives at Sulzer Leeds facility promote sustainability and wellbeing, Pump Wisdom: Chapter 13: Pump Condition Monitoring: Pump Vibration, Rotor Balance, and Effect on Bearing Life (Excerpt), Tsurumi KTZ pumps allow staff at North Carolina hot springs resort to relax (finally! Figure 4 is a parallel plot displaying the design parameter values as well as significant quantities of interest. Low-head hydropower systems are larger, as the water turbine has to be large to achieve a high flow rate while low water pressure is applied across the blades. No installation, special hardware or credit card is required. As an impeller pump, the flow needs to enter the impeller evenly throughout the entire circumference. Figure # shows the Simerics MP mesh of the best design, design20. Assessing the static pressure on the turbine blades is also important. Various result variables were analyzed to evaluate the optimum design. <> Food & Beverage Assessing the flow through the casing is also of interest, as maintaining a constant velocity and having a circumferentially uniform pressure to the runner blades is ideal. endobj 2008) is headquartered in Dresden, Germany, with a major office in New York City, NY. The simulation revealed that the flow could be accelerated. Set up your own simulation via web in minutes by creating a free account on the SimScale platform. 12 0 obj The Pelton turbineor Pelton wheelis known as an impulse turbine, as one that extracts energy from moving water. At the same time, the draft tube modification leaves the high to low-pressure change more gradual, thereby optimizing the system. 11 0 obj Today, Francis turbines are globally the most widely used turbines for hydroelectric power generation. <>stream Design explorations can be made manually or performed using a CFturbo engineered Python script solutions. As seen in this case study, CFturbo is compatible with a variety of engineering simulation software like Simerics MP and Star-CCM+. No installation, special hardware or credit card is required. 13 0 obj The draft tube decelerates the fluid from the exit of the runner to the discharge to increase pressure and minimizes the loss of kinetic energy. N')].uJr The company is supported by a global network of distributors and has gained worldwide respect within the Turbomachinery community over the last ten years. [2] R.Escher and R.Dubs, Die Theorie der Wasserturbinen 3. Then after transmitting its energy, the fluid exits in the axial direction into the draft tube. I would like to sign up to receive news and updates from SimScale. The water is then released in increments, flowing through the turbine, rotating it, and activating a generator that then produces electricity. The implemented design modifications led to an increase of 1.5% in the peak efficiency of the Francis turbine, to an additional 450 kWh of energy.
Although these improvements seem relatively minuscule, its important to highlight that these changes have significant consequences due to the immense scale of Francis turbines. [/ICCBased 11 0 R] Based on the head under which they operate, water turbines can be classified into high, medium, and low head. Oil & Gas About CFturbo More specifically, a Francis turbine operates by water flowing through a spiral casing into (static) guide vanes which control the flow of the water towards the (moving) runner blades. Works Cited In contrast, models with relatively lower runner blade angles resulted in worse efficiencies in this particular case.
The baseline design is displayed in pink. By doing this, the turbine fills the gap between high and low-head turbines, creating a more efficient design, and challenging engineers today to further improve upon it. 2. Power / Renewable Energy CFturbo, Inc. offers a variety of Turbomachinery engineering services including aerodynamic and hydraulic designs, CFD and FEA simulation, rotating machinery optimization, mechanical design, prototyping, and testing. The final and most famous water turbine, the Francis turbine, accounts for 60% of the worlds hydropower. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. (You can unsubscribe anytime), Francis Turbine Design for Hydropower Generation. A water turbine, with the Kaplan, Pelton, and Francis turbines being the most common ones, is a large rotary machine that works to convert kinetic and potential energy into hydroelectricity. To extract the maximum amount of power, the shaping of the inlet volute, guide vanes, and runner blades must be carefully designed to allow the water to pass smoothly through the device. Next, both the total efficiencies and the runner efficiencies were analyzed. This aspect of the design was then chosen for optimization. Figure 6 Total Stage Efficiency vs. Volumetric Flowrate, Figure 7 Net Head vs. Volumetric Flowrate, Figure 8 Shaft Power vs. Volumetric Flowrate, Figure 9 Static Pressure Streamlines CFturbo + SMP (Steady-state, 3.89 m3/s, 600rpm), Figure 10 Velocity with Streamlines CFturbo + SMP (Steady-state, 3.89 m3/s, 600rpm), The initial design point coincided with the best efficiency point. (*(%8H8c- fd9@6_IjH9(3=DR1%? )U!$5X3/9 ($5j%V*'&*r" (,!!0b;C2( I8/ Aerospace / Military / Defense They are the power source that make it possible, Advanced seal technologies for CCUS and sCO2 applications support energy transition initiatives Companies increasingly are prioritizing energy transition initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions known, Hydra-Cell Seal-less Pumps provide accurate and reliable custody transfer of crude oil, produced water, and NGLs. CFturbo is dedicated to Turbomachinery design and related engineering services in the design of rotating machinery, fluid flow, and heat transfer.
Community Plan 14-Day Professional Trial. [1] P. Breeze and P. Breeze, Hydropower, in Power Generation Technologies, 3rd ed., Elsevier Science & Technology, 2019, pp. As the world shifts to greater reliance on sustainable energy sources, the design and optimization of relevant turbomachinery devices are imperative. endobj The simulation found that the design could be improved upon to make this change more gradual to save energy. They feature a compact design, require minimal maintenance, and, Liquefied natural gas (LNG) will play a pivotal role as companies transition from coal and oil to cleaner energy sources during renewed efforts to significantly, Your email address will not be published. To optimize the Francis Turbine base geometry, three design parameters were strategically varied with hopes of analyzing variable sensitivity in performance: 1. the blade position (angle) of the wicket gate, 2. the blade angle at the leading edge of the runner, and 3. the blade angle of the trailing edge of the runner.
n3kGz=[==B0FX'+tG,}/Hh8mW2p[AiAN#8$X?AKHI{!7. Once youve decided upon the turbine design that suits your resources and meets your power needs, simulating your CAD on an online platform like SimScale allows you to further optimize your design by simulating in 3 easy steps; uploading your CAD, setting up your simulation, and making design decisions based on your findings.
In the 19th century, water turbines were predominantly used for industrial power before electrical grids became widespread. This outcome is logical given the more refined quality of the. Your email address will not be published. Figure # shows the Star-CCM+ mesh of the best design out of the 25. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); *Industry * Design Exploration using Star-CCM+ Through modification of the stator angles, it was then demonstrated how recirculation can be improved or worsened by altering certain elements based on what the simulation has highlighted. Star-CCM+ mesh and the Simerics-MP transient simulations using the corresponding steady-state results as an initial solution. Fire / Fire Protection Engineering / Consulting Firm The software can be used to design a variety of turbomachinery-related devices, including pumps, fans, blowers, compressors, turbines, stators, and volutes. Baseline Design The simulation found that this appeared to be the case in the initial turbine design. To this date, CFturbo is the first and only commercial software on the market that gives users the chance to create conceptually hydro turbine designs while exporting and integrating 3D geometry models in a subsequent process of simulation and optimization. The CFturbo software allows its users to build and optimize all components of Hydro Turbines, as shown in this introductory case study of a Francis turbine. Finally, the products of the outlet peripheral speed and the outlet absolute circumferential velocity were analyzed to minimize downstream swirl. Industry We see the typical offset between steady-state and transient results over the whole operating range when calculating net head and efficiency. Evaluating the flow around the blades is imperative to decrease recirculation, which expends energy that could have been extracted for power. This can lead to additional noise,, Pumps and compressors are essential devices used in a wide range of industrial plants and buildings.
For a detailed video and case study of how you can use CFD to improve your Francis turbine design, watch the webinar below, and follow along with these slides. Water forces the runner to rotate through the combined impact and reaction of forces, finally exiting the runner through a draft tube that discharges the water flow into the external environment. <> A baseline geometry was prepared using the Hydro Turbine module within the CFturbo software. [/ICCBased 9 0 R] Both steady-state and transient simulations were performed for the two designs using a Binary Tree mesh of approximately 5 million cells. 10 0 obj Hb``$WR~|@T#2S/`M. [3] R. Thomann, Wasserturbinen 1./2.Teil 2. V)gB0iW8#8w8_QQj@&A)/g>'K t;\ $FZUn(4T%)0C&Zi8bxEB;PAom?W= The Francis turbine is a longstanding monument in the world of turbomachinery, dating back to the mid-19th century. Today, hydropower contributes to 16% of the worlds power generation. Manufacturing / Distributor / Wholesaler With this, design and finetuned optimization of turbomachinery devices is not only possible but streamlined. endobj Motivation and Objectives Figure 2 Francis Turbine Design CFturbo, 3D View. CFturbo integrates excellently with HEEDS (SIEMENS), DAKOTA (open source), optiSLang (Ansys), and others. The following three charts showing efficiency, net head, and power over volume flow rate, are for one wicket gate angle at one rotational speed. CFturbo (est. Water enters the volute inlet and passes the blade rows of stay vanes and wicket gate before colliding with the runner blades. Mining This energy is captured and turned into hydroelectric power. The simulation found that in the initial design, this aspect could be improved upon. A hydropower plant will generally use a dam on an active river to store water. Steel An inlet temperature of 20 C and an inlet pressure of 4 bar were also defined. Pharmaceutical Required fields are marked *. Given these criteria, design 20 (displayed in blue) was selected as the best design; at approximately the same outlet mass flow rate, the total efficiency increased from 89.9 % to 90.3 %, and the runner efficiency increased from 94.8% to 95.0%. Furthermore, it is easily possible to combine CFturbo with third-party optimization software to apply various mathematical optimization algorithms conveniently. <> With global energy demand rising rapidly and factors such as climate change and depleting fossil fuels, hydroelectricity has the potential to make a large impact as a form of green energy on a worldwide scale. In turn, high-head hydropower systems dont need such a large surface circumference, as they are used to harness energy from faster-moving water sources. It must be guaranteed that the fluid vapor pressure is never reached and that cavitation is avoided. Optimizing two things together is never sensible. Finally, you can establish the necessary speed of rotation of your proposed electrical generator. As discussed previously, design 20 slightly outperforms the baseline design in terms of both total efficiency and runner efficiency at the best efficiency point. "F$H:R!zFQd?r9\A&GrQhE]a4zBgE#H *B=0HIpp0MxJ$D1D, VKYdE"EI2EBGt4MzNr!YK ?%_&#(0J:EAiQ(()WT6U@P+!~mDe!hh/']B/?a0nhF!X8kc&5S6lIa2cKMA!E#dV(kel }}Cq9 Maintaining the velocity is a difficult design challenge, but it is important. Overall, designs with lower wicked gate angles lead to a decrease in downstream swirl and improved efficiencies. The simulation found that the blade design could be improved upon to further prevent the risk of causing cavitation. The next step would be to understand the impact of the draft tube modification alone, then to optimize the stator separately. The project used for this case study can be freely accessed in the SimScale Public Projects Library.
