• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.383-391
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• 2009

Vibrations at different frequencies with a different intensity as well as a pressure pulsation with different parameters are two phenomena which can be observed at different water turbines. Due to the vibration and the pressure pulsation some restrictions of water turbine operation range are applied. Similar problems with the efficiency level in a wide water turbine operation range are the basic problems which are solved for ages. A theoretical and practical solution of the above mentioned problems is very much time and money consuming. The paper describes a new theoretical solution of the excitation and pressure pulsation decrease as well as extension of the operational range with high efficiency level. The new concept to decrease the vibrations and pressure pulsations is based on a heterogeneous runner blade geometry generation. The new concept of the runner geometry design was numerically tested at a low specific speed pump turbine, see Fig. 1, and basic points of the concept are presented in this paper.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.387-394
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• 2020

A parametric study of a 2.5 kW class propeller type micro hydraulic turbine was performed. In order to analyze the internal flow characteristics in the hydraulic turbine, three dimensional Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations with shear stress transport turbulence model were used and the hexahedral grid system was used to construct computational domain. To secure the reliability of the numerical analysis, the grid dependency test was performed using the grid convergence index method based on the Richardson extrapolation, and the grid dependency was removed when about 1.7 million nodes were used. For the parametric study, the axial distance at shroud span (L) between the inlet guide vane and the runner, and the inlet and outlet blade angles (β₁, β₂) of the runner were selected as the geometric parameters. The inlet and outlet angles of the runner were defined in the 3 spans from the hub to tip, and a total of 7 geometric parameters were investigated. It was confirmed that the outlet angles of the runner had the most sensitive effect on the power and efficiency of the micro hydraulic turbine.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.17-23
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• 2013

Recently so much attention has been focused on renewable energy and, since its sources to exploit are already almost saturated in the country, the practical alternative to this situation could be a micro-turbine which uses the low head and low flow. From a point of view of local micro-turbine design capacity and manufacturing technology, the problems such as the accumulation of technical skills, the expansion of related industries, the national policy expansion and the turbine efficiency to improve are still vulnerable and it's true that there are also negative views about the economic feasibility, the technicity and the operation management of the micro-turbine. However, if the improvement can be done in technology of low-head double regulation micro-turbine to generate more outputs and the operation management can be reliably realized, the micro-turbine will be re-evaluated as an appliable source of renewable energy, even the output is small, and by a paradigm shift, it could realize a power generation as an economic and rational system.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.342-351
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• 2010

During the operation of a hydro turbine the fluid mechanical pressure loading on the turbine blades provides the driving torque on the turbine shaft. This fluid loading results in a structural load on the component which in turn causes the turbine blade to deflect. Classically, these mechanical stresses and deflections are calculated by means of finite element analysis (FEA) which applies the pressure distribution on the blade surface calculated by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) as a major boundary condition. Such an approach can be seen as a one-way coupled simulation of the fluid structure interaction (FSI) problem. In this analysis the reverse influence of the deformation on the fluid is generally neglected. Especially in axial machines the blade deformation can result in a significant impact on the turbine performance. The present paper analyzes this influence by means of fully two-way coupled FSI simulations of a propeller turbine utilizing two different approaches. The configuration has been simulated by coupling the two commercial solvers ANSYS CFX for the fluid mechanical simulation with ANSYS Classic for the structure mechanical simulation. A detailed comparison of the results for various blade stiffness by means of changing Young's Modulus are presented. The influence of the blade deformation on the runner discharge and performance will be discussed and shows for the configuration investigated no significant influence under normal structural conditions. This study also highlights that a two-way coupled fluid structure interaction simulation of a real engineering configuration is still a challenging task for today's commercially available simulation tools.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.25-32
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• 2014

The main objective of this study is to validate the performance characteristics of newly developed micro propeller turbine based on experimental model test. For this purpose, Measurements of efficiency and cavitation tests with variations on the guide vane opening, blade rotational speed, head and load are carried out according to the IEC standard for model testing. From the tests and scale up calculation, the maximum prototype and model efficiency of the runner blade reaches as high as 90.87 % and 90.27 % respectively. Test results show that good cavitation behavior is covered in the range of output 50kW and 100 kW.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.27-31
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• 2001

The Kaplan turbine model has been tested and analized. The blade angle and the guide vane opening of the turbine model were designed to be varied according to the best combination of guide vane and runner blade opening. When the changes in head and output were comparatively large, the efficiency drop were small, so the efficiency characteristics and stability of the entire operating condition were maintained in good condition. These results showed that the developed model in this study will be suitable for small hydro power stations with large changes in head and load.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.495-498
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• 2006

The Kaplan turbine model has been tested and analyzed. The blade angle and the guide vane opening of the turbine model were designed to be varied according to the best combination of guide vane and runner blade opening. When the changes in head and output were comparatively large, the efficiency drop were small, so the efficiency characteristics and stability of the entire operating condition were maintained in good condition. These results showed that the developed model in this study will be suitable for small hydropower stations with large changes In head and load such as agricultural reservoir.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.254-260
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• 2014

We studied water level rising of drum versus time in the small hydraulic vertical water turbine system in this paper. The water level rises continuously up to a certain point with the passage of time if the constant incoming water is supplied, while it stops rising and maintains equilibrium state without any more rising because it increases position energy and evatually makes outgoing velocity and outgoing water quantities of runner area. The water level of drum is determined independent of size, height, width, figure of drum or runner configuration. It comes out that the water level is dependent only on the incoming and outgoing water quantities, and the output power has similar behavior. Therefore, desirable water level and output power are not available unless incoming water quantities is abundant. We validate this phenomina through applyng our methodolgies to the real small hydraulic vertical water turbine system under constructing and testing in industrial facilities in Korea.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.225-232
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• 2017

Several maintenance issues related to cavitation erosion and fatigue cracks in the water turbine subcomponents of pumped-storage plants, such as a runner and a draft tube, have been reported in the past. Generally, the pumped-storage plants provide ancillary services, such as black-start and system stabilization. The ancillary services are responsible for cyclic low opening operation of the guide vanes. It has been empirically established that this low opening operation further damages the water turbine subcomponents. In this study, the acceleration effect of the low opening operation on the cavitation erosion and fatigue of the water turbine is quantitatively assessed through finite element flow analysis, finite element stress analysis, and fatigue analysis. As a result of the assessment, it is identified that the cavitation potential increases and the turbine efficiency decreases with a decrease in the opening of the guide vane. Also, the low opening operation has an insignificant effect on the fatigue even though it increases the maximum stress values at the runner blade roots.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.2833-2838
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• 2007

Recently, small hydropower attracts attention because of its clean, renewable and abundant energy resources to develop. However, suitable turbine type is not determined yet in the range of small hydropower and it is necessary to study for the effective turbine type. Moreover, relatively high manufacturing cost by the complex structure of the turbine is the highest barrier for developing the small hydropower turbine. Therefore, a cross-flow turbine is adopted because of its simple structure and high possibility of applying to small hydropower. The purpose of this study is to examine the optimum configuration of nozzle shape to further optimize the cross-flow hydraulic turbine structure and to improve the performance. The results show that pressure on the runner blade in Stage 1 and velocity at nozzle outlet have close relation to the turbine performance.