• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.274-281
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• 2013

The variable demand on the energy market requires a great flexibility in operating hydro turbines. However, Francis turbine operated at off-design conditions poses technical challenges related to large unsteady forces given by residual swirl and angular momentum. In order to improve the performance of a Francis turbine, the paper presents a numerical investigation of the 3D flow in the turbine at off-design conditions and discusses the influence of variable guide vane openings on the internal flow of a Francis turbine with the help of computational fluid dynamics. First, the internal flow characteristics of Francis turbine operated by varied guide vane angle at off design condition are computed and the optimal guide vane angle is obtained. Secondly, the Francis turbine is operated with guide vane number varies at the optimal guide vane angle. Finally, pressure contours and velocity distributions in the distributor are discussed and compared.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.40 no.8
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• pp.698-703
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• 2016

Francis hydro turbines have been most widely used throughout the world because of their wide range of head and flow rate applications. In most applications, they are used for high heads and flow rates. Currently, Korea is developing technology for Francis hydro turbine design and manufacture. In order to understand the internal details of Francis hydro turbines further, a new Francis turbine model runner is designed and model internal flow characteristics are investigated. The specific speed of the Francis hydro turbine model runner is $Ns=200m-kW-min^{-1}$. The runner blade is designed successfully according to the port area and one-dimensional loss analysis. The best efficiency point of the Francis hydro turbine model achieves 90% at the design condition. CFD analysis yields a hill chart of the Francis hydro turbine model for use in predicting performance.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.207.1-207.1
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• 2011

The performance of a francis turbine is studied by applying a new performance evaluation tester. the performance of a francis turbine is predicted under several operating conditions and the prediction results are compared with model test data. As a result, it is demonstrated that the present method can predict the performance of a francis turbine with high accuracy and has usefullness as an engineering tool on the performance of hydraulic turbines.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.5-10
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• 2016

As a key component of a Francis turbine facility, the runner performance plays a vital role in the performance of the turbine. It is effective and successful to design a Francis turbine runner blade with good performance by one dimensional hydraulic design method. On the basis of one dimensional hydraulic analysis, there are a lot of parameters of the internal flow passage shapes determined by experience. Among those parameters, the effect of port area of blade on the performance of a Francis turbine is investigated in this study. A given Francis turbine model was selected for investigating the port area of blade on the performance. The result shows that the effect of port area of runner blade on the outflow angle from runner passage on the performance is quite significant. A correct exit flow angle reduces the energy loss at draft tube, which has the best efficiency of the turbine model.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.618-626
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• 2012

Suppression of abnormal flow phenomena in the Francis hydro turbine is very important to improve the turbine performance. Especially, as cavitation and cavitation surge makes serious problems when the turbine is operated in the range of partial flow rate, optimum method of suppressing the abnormal flow characteristics is required necessarily. Moreover, as swirl flow in the draft tube of the Francis turbine decreases pressure at the inlet of the draft tube, suppression of the swirl flow can be an useful method of suppressing the occurrence of cavitation. In order to clarifying the possibility of suppressing the swirl flow by J-Groove in the draft tube, a series of CFD analysis has been conducted in the range of partial load, designed condition and excessive flow rate of a Francis turbine. A kind of J-Groove is designed and applied to the draft tube of the Francis hydro turbine model. The pressure contours, circumferential velocity vectors and vortex core regions in the draft tube are compared by the conditions with or without J-Groove. In addition, a group of data about the velocity in the draft is presented to show the influence of J-Groove.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.39-43
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• 2005

Among many other alternative energy resources, small scale hydropower has been brought into attention as a reliable source of energy today, which had been relatively neglected since 1960s. Present low head of Francis turbines and small scale hydroturbines, however, have limitations in the minimum required head and flow rate for efficient operation. This study attempts to develope the Francis turbine which is expected to run efficiently even in very low head and small flow rate, so that the limitations on the conventional small scale hydropower could alleviated and competition with other alternative energy sources in the changable design conditions could attained. The Francis turbine of a new concept was designed based on changable design conditions, hydrodynamics and theory of power transmission. The result of the study shows that two stages runner is more efficient, cheaper in construction, faster responding, and easier maintaining than single stage runner of Francis turbine

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.08a
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• pp.53-56
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• 2006

The hydraulic performances of a Francis turbine which had been designed and tested by IMHEF were calculated with a commercial code and compared with the IMHEF test results. The non-dimensional specific speed of the turbine is 0.5, the runner exit diameter 0.4m and maximum efficiency 93.1% respectively. To make the calculation of the turbine more exact, the stay vanes, the guide vane, the runner and the draft tube were calculated simultaneously. The calculation results gave a quite good agreement with the IMHEF test data, and therefore it is expected that the present calculation technique will be utilized for the hydraulic design of efficient Francis turbines.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.102-109
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• 2009

A design optimization system for Francis turbine was developed. The system consists of design program and CFD solver. Flow passage shapes are optimized automatically by using the system with Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm (MOGA). In this study, the system was applied to a high specific speed Francis turbine (nSP = 250m-kW). The runner profile and the draft tube shape were optimized to decrease hydraulic losses. As the results, it was shown that the turbine efficiency was improved in wide operating range, furthermore, the height of draft tube was reduced with the hydraulic performance kept.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.33 no.7
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• pp.1052-1059
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• 2009

The effects of varying the inlet flow angle on the output power of a Francis hydraulic turbine were studied numerically and the result was compared to the experimental results conducted at Korea Institute of Energy Research to determine the brake power of the turbine for each set of operating conditions. The loss of mechanical power of the model turbine was determined by comparing the numerical and experimental results, and thus the turbine efficiency or energy conversion efficiency of the model turbine could be estimated. From the result, it was found that the maximum brake efficiency of the turbine is approximately 46% at an induced angle of 35 degrees. The maximum indicated mechanical efficiency of the turbine is approximately 93% at an induced angle of 25~30 degrees.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.29 no.7
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• pp.750-757
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• 2005

The objective of this study is an understanding of the effect of inlet flow angle on the output power performance of a Francis hydraulic turbine, An optimum induced angle at the inlet of the turbine is one of the most important design parameters to have the best performance of the turbine at a given operating condition, In general. rotating speed of the turbine is varied with the change of water mass flowrate in a volute, The induced angle of the inlet water should be properly adjusted to the operating condition to have maximum energy conversion efficiency of the turbine, In this study. a numerical simulation was conducted to have detail understanding of the flow phenomenon in the flow path and output power of the model Francis turbine. The indicated power produced by the model turbine at a given operating condition was found numerically and compared to the brake power of the turbine measured by experiment at KIER. From comparison of two results, turbine efficiency or energy conversion efficiency of the model turbine was estimated. From the study, it was found that the rotating power of the turbine linearly increased with the rotating speed. It means that the higher volume flow rate supplied. the bigger torque on the turbine shaft generated. The maximum brake efficiency of the turbine is around 46$\%$ at 35 degree of induced angle. The difference between numerical and experimental output of the model turbine is defined as mechanical efficiency. The maximum mechanical efficiency of the turbine is around 93$\%$ at 25$\∼$30 degree of induced angle.