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Runaway transient simulation of a model Kaplan turbine

This content has been downloaded from IOPscience. Please scroll down to see the full text. 2010 IOP Conf. Ser.: Earth Environ. Sci. 12 012073 (http://iopscience.iop.org/1755-1315/12/1/012073) View the table of contents for this issue, or go to the journal homepage for more

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25th IAHR Symposium on Hydraulic Machinery and Systems IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 12 (2010) 012073

IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1755-1315/12/1/012073

Runaway transient simulation of a model Kaplan turbine

S Liu1, D Zhou2, D Liu1, Y Wu1 and M Nishi3 State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering, Dept. of Thermal Eng., Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China 2 Water Conservancy & Hydropower Eng., Hohai University, Nanjing. 210098, China 3 Kyushu Inst. Tech. Senior Academy, Kitakyushu, 804-8550, Japan E-mail: liushuhong@tsinghua.edu.cn
Abstract. The runaway transient is a typical transient process of a hydro power unit, where the rotational speed of a turbine runner rapidly increases up to the runaway speed under a working head as the guide vanes cannot be closed due to some reason at the load rejection. In the present paper, the characteristics of the runaway transient of a model Kaplan turbine having ns = 479(m-kW) is simulated by using a time-dependent CFD technique where equation of rotational motion of runner, continuity equation and unsteady RANS equations with RNG k turbulence model are solved iteratively. In the calculation, unstructured mesh is used to the whole flow passage, which consists of several sub-domains: entrance, casing, stay vanes + guide vanes, guide section, runner and draft tube. And variable speed sliding mesh technique is used to exchange interface flow information between moving part and stationary part, and three-dimensional unstructured dynamic mesh technique is also adopted to ensure mesh quality. Two cases were treated in the simulation of runaway transient characteristics after load rejection: one is the rated operating condition as the initial condition, and the other is the condition at the maximum head. Regarding the runaway speed, the experimental speed is 1.45 times the initial speed and the calculation is 1.47 times the initial for the former case. In the latter case, the experiment and the calculation are 1.67 times and 1.69 times respectively. From these results, it is recognized that satisfactorily prediction will be possible by using the present numerical method. Further, numerical results show that the swirl in the draft-tube flow becomes stronger in the latter part of the transient process so that a vortex rope will occur in the draft tube and its precession will cause the pressure fluctuations which sometimes affect the stability of hydro power system considerably.
1

1. Introduction
Unsteadiness of the flow in a hydraulic reaction turbine is usually amplified during the transient process in such a case of load rejection. Since velocity and pressure may vary greatly, various abnormal phenomena are apt to occur in the turbine and cause serious damages to the hydraulic system, including a penstock and a surgechamber. Thus, the transient characteristic of a hydro power plant should be examined before its installation to evaluate its feasibility. For this issue, extensive studies have been done theoretically, experimentally and numerically, and useful measures have been demonstrated. The software called SIMSEN [1, 2] has been developed by the EPFL Laboratory for transient phenomena in pipes, valves, surge tanks and Francis turbines based on impedance method. In traditional numerical simulation of the transient, the whole characteristic curve of hydraulic machinery was used as the boundary condition for solving a one-dimensional flow problem. However, Chang Jinshi [3] proposed a new method called the internal characteristic analysis, which is not based on the prescribed characteristic curve of hydraulic machinery, but based on its geometric dimensions and one-dimensional inviscid hypothesis to deduce the governing equations. Ruprecht and Heimrich [4] demonstrated a useful coupled simulation technique which consists of one-dimensional water hammer calculation based on the method of characteristics and three-dimensional flow analysis of the draft tube in a Francis turbine for predicting the oscillations of a hydro power plant. The runaway transient is a typical transient process of a hydro power unit, where the rotational speed of a turbine runner rapidly increases up to the runaway speed under a working head as the guide vanes cannot be

c 2010 IOP Publishing Ltd

25th IAHR Symposium on Hydraulic Machinery and Systems IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 12 (2010) 012073

IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1755-1315/12/1/012073

closed due to such a reason as the speed-controller accident at the load rejection. Li Jinwei et al.[5] investigated three-dimensional unsteady flow in a Francis turbine during the runaway transient by using a time-dependent simulation technique that coupled those equations, i.e., the equation of rotational motion of the runner, the continuity and Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations with RNG k turbulence model. They showed that the unit discharge and unit rotational speed at the runaway condition were reasonably predicted. In order to develop the above technique further, we treat the runaway transient of a Kaplan turbine in this paper. Unsteady flow calculations have conducted for the following two cases: one corresponds to the rated operating condition and the other is the maximum head condition.

2. Governing equations
2.1 The equation of rotational dynamics For the rotational system having the moment of inertia J, the following law is valid between the angular velocity and the net torque T acting on the system:

T =J

d dt

(1)

2.2 The control equations in rotating reference frame with angular acceleration For the incompressible fluid flow with the constant coefficient of viscosity, the vector form of momentum equation with absolute velocity in the rotating reference frame is given by

V 1 + (W )V + V = f p + 2V t
Substituting V = W + r in Eq. (2),

(2)

(W + r ) 1 + (W )(W + r ) + (W + r ) = f p + 2V t
After rearranging Eq. (3), the following momentum equation with relative velocity is obtained.

(3)

W p 2 + W W = S + W t
where the source term S is expressed as

(4)

S = f 2 W + ( r ) (d / dt ) r

(5)

2.3 The control equation in Arbitrary Lagrange-Euler reference frame Noh and Hirt [6] provide the ALE method, where the computational grid doesnt need to be fixed, nor attached to fluid particles, but can be arbitrarily movable in relative coordinates. The momentum equation in the arbitrary Lagrange-Euler reference frame is written as

vi v 2 vi 1 p j ) i = fi + (v j v + t x j x j x j xi
where v j =

(6)

x ( , t ) , is the time derivative of mesh position. t

2.4 RNG k turbulence model The k and equations are written as:

ui Dk k k eff = + 2t Sij Dt x j x j x j

(7)

25th IAHR Symposium on Hydraulic Machinery and Systems IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 12 (2010) 012073

IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1755-1315/12/1/012073

The

effective

ui D 2 = + 2 C1 t Sij C 2 R eff x j x j Dt x j k k viscosity is expressed as eff = + t . Additional term

(8) R is given by

R=

C 3 (1 / o ) 2 1 + 3
k

where
=S = 0.769

o = 4.38 C = 0.0845 = 0.012 C1 = 1.42 C 2 = 1.68 k = 1.0

3. A model Kaplan turbine and boundary conditions for numerical simulation

Table 1 Specifications of a model Kaplan turbine Specific speed Rated unit speed Rated unit flow rate Number of stay vane (S.V.) Number of guide vane (G.V.) Number of runner blade Runner diameter ns = 479 (m kW) n11 = 147.8 (r/min) Q11 = 1.839 (m3/s) 17 32 5 0.46 (m) Casing S.V.+G.V. Runner

Entrance Draft tube

Fig. 1 Model Kaplan turbine A model Kaplan turbine of ns = 479 (m-kW) is used for the present simulation. Its major specifications are listed in Table 1. As shown in Fig. 1, the whole passage of the turbine from the entrance to the draft tube exit is selected as the computational domain. The following conditions are given at each of the boundaries: Inflow plane: The uniform profile of velocity is assumed at the inflow plane and its magnitude is calculated from the mean flow in the experiment. As the total pressure is specified at the inflow, the static pressure is also prescribed. In the computation, the default inlet turbulence intensity l was selected, and the value was set to l = 0.037 , which nearly corresponds to the value of internal pipe flow. Then, the inlet turbulent kinetic energy and the dissipation (RNG k model) are calculated. Outflow plane: At the outflow plane, in addition to the global conservation of mass, it is assumed that all variables have the zero-gradient. Solid walls: The boundary conditions near solid walls were implemented using wall functions, and non-slip condition was applied on the wall surface. Numerical treatment: Unstructured mesh is used to the whole flow passage, though the passage is divided

25th IAHR Symposium on Hydraulic Machinery and Systems IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 12 (2010) 012073

IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1755-1315/12/1/012073

into several sub-domains: entrance, casing, G.V.+S.V., guide section, runner and draft tube in the simulation. The mesh number of each sub-domain is shown in the Table 2. Variable speed sliding mesh technique is used to exchange interface flow information between moving part and stationary part, and three-dimensional unstructured dynamic mesh technique is also adopted to ensure mesh quality. The numerical simulation was performed by using the CFD code Fluent. It is noted that the second order upwind scheme was used for discretization of convective term and the second order central scheme for discretization of diffusion term and other source terms. The implicit method was used to solve the incompressible flow. The discrete momentum equations and the continuity equation for the complete flow field were iteratively solved together with the equation of angular motion of runner. Table 2 Mesh number of each sub-domain. Components Node Element Entrance 15491 80245 Casing 25072 122014 G.V.+S.V. 128587 610612 Guide section 31481 162915 Runner 83180 412480 Draft tube 74263 391988

4. Results and Discussion

Two typical cases are treated in the present simulation to clarify the features of the runaway transient and flow behavior in a Kaplan turbine after load-rejection. Case 1 corresponds to the rated operating condition before the load-rejection, and Case 2 is the rated output condition at the maximum head. 4.1 Rated operating condition (Case 1) The following are the conditions of Case 1: Working head H =0.732m, rotational speed n =270rpm, guide vane opening 0 =30.5mm, blade angle =15deg. In the transient calculation, time step was chosen as 0.005s. To monitor the pressure variations in the turbine, seven reference points (1# ~ 7#) were distributed along the flow passage from the spiral casing to draft tube. They are shown in Fig. 2 and Table 3. Table 3 Locations of recording points (Case 1) 1# 2# 3# 4# 5# 6# 7# Half height, in the casing Half height, near the leading edge of stay vane (S.V.) Half height, near the tailing edge of guide vane (G.V.) On the top cover Upper side of entrance section of draft tube Center of entrance section of draft tube Down side of entrance section of draft tube

Fig. 2 Locations of the reference points (Case 1) (1) Transient characteristics As the numerical results of transient characteristics, Fig. 3 shows the time histories of rotational speed, flow rate and torque, which are nondimensionalized by the initial value respectively. It is seen in the figure that both rotational speed and flow rate increase fast at the beginning and gradually slow with decrease of the torque, and

25th IAHR Symposium on Hydraulic Machinery and Systems IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 12 (2010) 012073

IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1755-1315/12/1/012073

reach the maximum values after 3.4s. 1.47 times the initial (i.e., 397 rpm) is predicted as the runaway speed. From comparison with the experimental result of 392rpm, it is thought that good agreement is obtained, though there is the difference of 1.3% between them. Regarding the flow rate, its maximum is about 0.411m3/s, which is 1.24 times the initial. After t = 1.5s, fluctuation of the torque is observed in the time history. It may indicate that unexpected behavior of nonsteady flow has occurred in the turbine passage.

Fig. 3 Time histories of turbine performances ( Case 1 )

Fig. 4 Time history of pressure at seven points ( Case 1 ) Fig. 5 Three reference sections in the draft tube Table 4 Flow behavior in the Kaplan turbine during runaway transient (Case 1) t=0.0s t=0.86s t=1.86s t=2.86s

Runner

25th IAHR Symposium on Hydraulic Machinery and Systems IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 12 (2010) 012073
-600

IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1755-1315/12/1/012073

- -300 -8 600 00

-1500

-90 0 -1 10 0 -1300

S1

0 00 -1 0 20 -1

-1700
-120 0

-1200 -1500

-1400 00 -11

-1500 -1300
-1500
-1 90 0

-1 0 30
-1 0 00 00 -8 -500

-1700

00 -11 -800

S2

S3 (Runner: pressure distributions, unit: Pa; S1: static pressure contours, unit: Pa; distributions) S2, S3: stream line

Time histories of pressures at seven reference points during the transient process are shown in Fig. 4. Owing to the increase of rotational speed and flow rate during the transient, pressures monitored at 1# ~ 4# points upstream of the runner tend to decrease almost monotonically. Regarding pressures at the draft tube inlet, fluctuations are clearly observed in the results of 5# and 7# points at the wall after t = 1.5s,. The frequency is nearly one third the runner rotational frequency. The time history of center pressure 6# shows that the pressure decreases greatly between t = 1.0s and t = 1.5s. From these features, it is suspected that strong swirling flow may occur in the draft tube. (2) Flow behavior during the runaway transient To see flow behavior in the model Kaplan turbine during the runaway transient in detail, numerical flow visualization was made at three reference sections, which are schematically shown in Fig. 5. They are S1 of the inlet cross section, S2 of the horizontal section and S3 of the meridional section. Various snapshots at four kinds of lapsed time are displayed in Table 4. Pressure contours on the runner surface: Pressure force differential between the action surface and the reaction surface of runner blades is clearly recognized at t = 0s, the beginning of load rejection. As time passes, it is seen that not only the pressure differential but the pressure level is reduced. These trends are explainable because the former is due to the decrease of incidence angle and the latter is due to the acceleration of through flow. Care should be exercised to avoid the occurrence of cavitation during the transient process. Pressure distributions in S1 section: Five low pressure zones corresponding to the blade wakes are observed at t = 0s. Then, the pressure at the center region decreases greatly with the increase of lapsed time. This may be due to the increase of swirl flow entering the draft tube from the runner. And it is also seen that variation of pressure in the peripheral direction is amplified. Distributions of two-dimensional streamlines in S2 and S3 sections: All results indicate that the flow distortion in the draft tube is strengthened during the transient. From S3 results, it is recognized that the back flow near the center downstream of the runner hub is rapidly growing up in the draft tube. Thus, the vortex rope which generates pressure fluctuations is likely to occur in the runaway transient of the test Kaplan turbine. 4.2 Operation Condition at maximum head (Case 2) The following are the conditions of Case 2: Working head H =1m, rotational speed n =267rpm, guide vane opening 0 =19.6mm, =2.5deg. In this transient calculation, time step was chosen as 0.002s.

blade angle

25th IAHR Symposium on Hydraulic Machinery and Systems IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 12 (2010) 012073

IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1755-1315/12/1/012073

Fig. 6 Time histories of turbine performances ( Case 2 ) (1) Transient characteristics

Fig. 7 Reference points at the draft tube inlet ( Case 2 ) Fig. 8 Time history of pressure at four points ( Case 2 )

Fig. 9 Time histories of pressures at the draft tube inlet ( Case 2 ) Figure 6 shows the variations of dimensionless rotational speed, flow rate, torque and axial hydraulic-force against lapsed time. It is seen that qualitative transient characteristics are nearly the same as those of Case 1.

25th IAHR Symposium on Hydraulic Machinery and Systems IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 12 (2010) 012073

IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1755-1315/12/1/012073

However, the runaway speed of 452.4rpm is predicted after t = 4.07s, which is 1.69 times the initial. As 445.7rpm was the test result, the simulation overestimates by 1.5% in this case. The increment of runaway speed in Case 2 is much larger than that in Case 1. This feature may be attributed to larger head and smaller guide vane opening in Case 2. Consequently, it is suspected that the present numerical method is usable to predict the runaway transient of Kaplan turbine satisfactorily. Regarding the axial force acting on the runner, about 30% of the initial remains even at the runaway condition, though its transient characteristic is similar to the torque curve. Fluctuations are observed not only axial force and torque curves but the flow rate in Case 2. (2) Time histories of pressures To study the feature of transient pressure in the draft tube, as shown in Fig. 7, nine reference points (1# ~ 9#) were distributed in the inlet section of the draft tube in this simulation. Variations of pressures upstream of the draft tube were also monitored at four reference points used in Case 1. Time histories of pressures in Case 2 are shown in Fig. 8 and Fig. 9. From Fig. 8, it is seen that the transient characteristics of pressures upstream of the draft tube inlet are almost similar to those of Case 1. Regarding the pressure in the draft tube during the transient process, much larger amplitudes of pressure fluctuations than those of Case 1 are observed. From their phase shifts, it is explained that the pressure fluctuations are caused by the rotation of vortex rope occurred in the draft tube due to stronger swirl flow.

5. Concluding remarks
1) The experiment showed that the runaway speed of model Kaplan turbine having ns = 479(m-kW) reached 1.45 times the initial speed at the rated operation condition. If the working head was the maximum, the runaway speed became 1.67 times the initial due to the load rejection. These features are satisfactorily predicted by using the present numerical method, where equation of runner motion, continuity and unsteady RANS equations with RNG k model are solved iteratively. For the above two cases of operating condition, the characteristics of runaway transient were clarified numerically by investigating the time histories of rotational speed, flow rate, torque, axial force, and pressures in the turbine. As the swirl in the draft-tube flow becomes stronger in the latter part of the transient process, a vortex rope will occur in the draft tube and cause the pressure fluctuations which sometimes affect the stability of hydro power system considerably.

2) 3)

Acknowledgments
The research work was funded by Chinese National Foundation of Natural Science (No. 10532010) and by the National Key Technology R&D Program in China. Authors also would like to express their thanks to the support by the Project 2010-ZY-5.

References
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Sapin A 1995 Logiciel modulaire pour la simulation et ltude des systmes dentranement et des rseaux lectriques PhD thesis (EPFL, These 1346) Siervo F de, Leva F de 1976 Modern design trends in selecting and designing Francis turbines Water Power and Dam Constr. (London ABC) 28-35 Chang Jinshi 2005 Transient of hydraulic machine installation Higher education publishing company (in Chinese) Ruprecht A and Helmrich T 2003 Simulation of the Water Hammer in a Hydro Power Plant Caused by Draft Tube Surge 4th ASME JSME Joint Fluids Engin. Conf. (Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, July 6-10, FEDSM 2003-45249) Li J. Wu Y and Liu S 2007 3d unsteady turbulent simulation of the runaway transient of the Francis turbine 5th Joint ASME/JSME Fluids Engi. Conf. (San Diego, CA, USA, July 30-August 2, FEDSM200737451) Hirt C W, Amsden A A and Cook J L 1974 An arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian computing method for all flow speed J. Comput. Phys. 14 227-53