Effect of Thoma Numbner on Cavitation Inside a Francis Turbine |
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학술지명 AFORE2021
저자 Shahze,김승준,조용,김진혁
발표일 2021-11-01
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Hydropower plant plays a vitatl role in the fulfilment of electricity requirement as a non-conventional energy source. Francis turbine is widely accepted turbine because of its highly efficient feature. Cavitation is a very common problem in this type of turbine occurs generally at apart-load conditions. Swirling flow inside the draft tube during the cativation induces vibrations inside the turbine whichin turn causes the erosion and the turbine may fail catastrophically when this vibrational frequency matches the natural frequency. Therefore, the present study is focused on the cavitation inside the draft tube of the turbine. To suppress the instabilities caused by the cavitation, fins are already mounted on the draft tube wall. Cavitation inception and developement depens on suction head, atmospheric pressure, vapour pressure, temperature and velocity. To find the sfe operation range of the without cavitation, a demensionless number, called Thoma number is defined. In this sutdy, the effect of Thoma number corresponding to suction pressure atthe outlet is numerically investigated for the determination of safe working rage at part load conditions by using the commercial software ANSYS-CFX. Standard cavitaion test is essential for the calculation of Thoma number, so steady flow physics with and without caviation is obtained for two regimes of operation namely, best efficiency point(BEP) and part load condition. Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes(RANS) equations are solved along with a two-phase mixture model using shear stress transport(SST) model to capture the cavitation. Variation in performance characteristics of the turbine for the reduction in cavitation number at the operating conditions are assessed and safe working range is predicted correctly. Whole numerical results are also verified by the experimental data obtained by an experiment based on International Standard (EC 60193) norms. The vortex rope inception and progression areobserved and visualized using an iso-surface distribution of pressure. The pressure variation inside the drafe tube is calculated for different cross-sections. |