What are Different Types of Turbine?

In this article we will learn about different types of turbine. The turbines are of basically four types
and these are water turbine, steam turbine, gas turbine and wind turbine. We will also discuss here
what is turbine, main parts of turbine and working principle of a turbine.

What is Turbine?
A turbine is a mechanical device which extracts energy from a moving fluid and converts it into
useful work. The turbines are basically used to produce electricity.

Main Parts of a Turbine

The main parts of a turbine are

1. Nozzle: It guides the steam to flow in designed direction and velocity.

2. Runner: it is the rotating part of the turbine and blades are attached to the
runner.
3. Blades: It is that part of the turbine on which the fast moving fluid strikes
and rotates the runner.
4. Casing: It is the outer air tight covering of the turbine which contains the
runner and blades. It protects the internal parts of the turbine.

Working Principle of a Turbine

1. A fast moving fluid (it may be water, gas, steam or wind) is made to strike on
the blades of the turbine.
2. As the fluid strikes the blades, it rotates the runner. Here the energy of the
moving fluid is converted into rotational energy.
3. A generator is coupled with the shaft of the turbine. With the rotation of the
runner of the turbine, the shaft of the generator also rotates. The generator
converts the mechanical energy of the runner into electrical energy.

Types of Turbine
 Basically turbines are classified into four types

1. Water turbine
2. Steam turbine
3. Gas turbine
4. Wind turbine
Here the same working principle that is discussed above is applied to all types of turbine.

Water Turbine
A turbine that extracts energy from moving water and converts it into electrical energy, is called
water turbine or hydraulic turbine.

Types of Hydraulic Turbine

The hydraulic turbines are classified on the following basis

1. According to The Type of Energy Available

at Inlet.
(i). Impulse Turbine: If the energy available at the inlet of the turbine is only kinetic energy, the
turbine is known as impulse turbine.
(ii). Reaction Turbine: If the energy available at the inlet of the turbine is kinetic energy as
well as pressure energy, the turbine is known as reaction turbine.

2. According to the Direction of Flow

(i). Tangential Flow Turbine: If the water flows along the tangent of the runner, the Turbine is
known as tangential flow turbine. For Example: Pelton turbine.
(ii). Radial Flow Turbine: If the water flows in the radial direction through the runner, the turbine is
called radial flow turbine.

(iii). Axial Flow Turbine: If the water flows through the runner along the direction parallel to the axis
of rotation of the runner the turbine is called axial flow turbine.
(iv). Mixed Flow Turbine: If the water flows through the runner in the radial direction but leaves in
the direction parallel to the axis of rotation of the runner, the turbine is called mixed flow turbine.
For example: Kaplan Turbine

3. According to the Head at the Inlet of Turbine

(i). High Head Turbine: The net head varies in this turbine is from 150 m to 2000 m or even more.
It requires small quantity of water. Eg: pelton turbine.
(ii). Medium Head Turbine: in this turbine, the net head varies from 30 m to 150 m. It requires
moderate quantity of water. Eg: Francis turbine.
(iii). Low Head Turbine: In low head turbines, the net head is less than 30 m. it requires large
quantity of water. Eg: Kaplan turbine.
4. According to the Specific Speed of the
Turbine
(i). Low Specific Speed Turbine: it has specific speed less than 50. Eg: pelton turbine.

(ii). Medium Specific Speed Turbine: The specific speed varies from 50 to 250. Eg Francis turbine.

(iii). High Specific Speed Turbine: The specific speed is more than 250. Eg: Kaplan turbine.

What is Impulse Turbine – Working

Principle, Main Parts, Types and
Application

Introduction
Heard about electricity generation by hydropower plants, know what makes them so efficient that
they are lightening up our houses. Yeah that’s the whole effort we have put-in to design our turbines,
and make them more and more efficient. Now days an efficient turbine can utilize up-to 90% of the
water’s potential energy. Although there are various types of impulse turbines available, but Pelton
wheel turbine is the most widely used impulse turbine. We can generate maximum up-to 200 MW
of electricity from a Pelton wheel turbine, where we have water head (height of stored water), as high
as one thousand meter.
We know about the potential of water, a very long time from now, when it was used to grind wheat
into flour by converting the energy of flowing water into rotational energy through large water
wheels. Since then till now let’s see how much we have advanced and changed to use the water’s
potential energy in more efficient way.
Working Principle
The potential energy of the water is converted into kinetic energy by passing it through a nozzle.
Once we have high speed water jet, we can use its impact to rotate a turbine.

Or we can say, it works on Newton’s second law of motion, that it depends on two main factors, mass
of water flowing in-to turbine, and change in the velocity of the flow coming in-to turbine to that of
going out of turbine after impact. As the mass of water entering into the turbine is same as the water
going out of turbine after impact, but with a considerable decrement in its velocity. And the intensity
of impact depends upon the time taken by velocity to change from maximum (jet velocity) to
minimum. Thus impulse turbine only uses the kinetic energy of water to get its power.

Also Read:
Types of Turbine
Types of Wind Turbines – Horizontal Axis and Vertical Axis Wind Turbines

Components of Impulse Turbine

1. Runner
It is a solid circular-disc with cylindrical shaft in the center. The shaft and the runner both are made
from high strength stainless steel where load on the turbine is considerably high. Runners are also
made from cast iron where available water head is a bit low, thus force on turbine is not that high.

2. Buckets
Buckets are cup type hollow hemispherical structures, bolted on the periphery of the runner. Jet
strikes these buckets to rotate the runner. Their design plays a vital role in deciding the efficiency of a
turbine. . These are made either from stainless-steel or cast iron

Nozzle directs the flow of water to the buckets, with an increased velocity coming from a high head.
Spear is a conical structure which is moved in and out of nozzle to regulate the flow of water striking
the buckets.

4. Casing
Casing of an impulse turbine is a preventive shielding over the turbine, usually made of cast iron. It
also prevents the water from splashing, and also guides it to the spill way.

You Should Know?

When we say impulse turbine, we are looking at all the turbines using the impulse action of water to
generate power. Let’s see how they are different from each other.

Pelton Wheel Turbine

Pelton wheel turbine is the most efficient turbine in the family of impulse turbines. It is at its best
when the available water head is high. The buckets of pelton wheel have two hemispherical cups
attached to each other, in such a way that their attachment point is a common edge (sharp) called
splitter. Splitter splits the water jet into two parts, thus making it to flow along the curved path of
both the buckets, and transfer the momentum of water to the runner. Pelton wheel turbine also has a
breaking jet and a deflector mechanism.

2. Turgo Water Turbine

Turgo is another efficient turbine, it is almost similar to pelton wheel turbine the only difference is
that it has one hemispherical bucket instead of two. So water jets strikes this bucket at its center and
thus transfer the momentum of water to the turbine. Turgo turbine is efficient for both medium and
high water head.

3. Cross-flow Turbine
This impulse turbine has cylindrical runner with guide blades at its periphery. These blades are
shaped like an arc of a circle and extend along the length of a runner. Water flows transversely
through the runner. As water runs through the runner, it passes over the blades twice, thus increasing
the turbines efficiency. Cross-flow is most efficient where the water head is low, but with good flow
velocity. It has got 2 nozzles to distribute the flow of water evenly along the length of the runner.

Also Read:
Difference Between Impulse and Reaction Turbine
Difference Between Gas Turbine and Steam Turbine
 Working of Impulse Turbine
Water stored at a height is passed through a nozzle, situated almost at ground level or ever below
ground level. Thus converting the energy of stored water into high speed jet. This high speed water
jet strikes the buckets or blades attached to the runner, forcing runner to rotate at its own axis. Thus
converting the energy of high speed-jet into rotational energy. This rotational movement of turbine
shaft is used to produce electricity through generator.

Spear is moved in and out of nozzle to regulate the flow of water, according to the load on turbine.
To get maximum power output from a turbine the velocity of jet striking the buckets should be as
much as twice the speed of rotating buckets. So velocity of water-jet is regulated according to the
load or rpm of turbine in such a way that we can keep turbine running in its most efficient range.

Moreover, practically we use 3 to 4 nozzles instead of one. This is done to deal with the high loads
on turbine and to increase the power output capability of a turbine. Power is also regulated by closing
few nozzles when load on the turbine is low.

When the load on the turbine decreases suddenly, and spear could not act fast enough to regulate the
flow of water-jet, the rpm of turbine will keep on increasing and could damage the turbine. To
prevent this from happening we use deflector which deflects the flow of water jet away from the
turbine buckets. Thus keeping turbine under safe limits.

Applications
 It is used worldwide to produce electrical energy in a number of hydro-power
plants.
 Turbochargers in automobiles uses the pressure energy of exhaust gases
through impulse turbine. Where hot and pressurized gases coming out of exhaust
are converted into high velocity jet by passing them through nozzle.
 It is also used in reverse osmosis plant, where waste water jet velocity is used
to run turbine, thus acts as an energy recovery system.
Francis Turbine Working Principle, Main
Parts, Diagram and Application
Introduction
Turbines using the impulse action of water are the best ones. No it’s not like that
reaction turbines are more efficient, when all of this was happening, James B.
Francis, an American civil engineer comes up with his turbine called Francis
turbine. What’s different he is doing!!!
He is just mixing them up. The good’s of both the impulse and reaction turbine,
say water enters the turbine radially and exits axially. But that’s not a secret to
his turbine efficiency. The magic lies in his amazing design of blades, these
blades rotate using both reaction and impulse force of water flowing through
them.
The ability of francis turbine to use both the kinetic and potential energy to
produce power, shorts out a major problem of water head availability as it could
be used efficiently for head as low as 50m to as high as 400m and also for a
wide range of flow rates which could be as low as 10 meter-cube per second to
as high as 700 meter-cube per second.
That’s why Francis turbine is also called as mixed flow turbine. so it is now
obvious that it is the best modern turbine we have till date. It is the most widely
used turbine in the hydro-power plants. So let’s just figure it out what else it
contains which makes it stand out of league of all other turbines.

Working Principle
Francis turbine blades are designed in such a way that one portion of the blade
design creates the pressure difference between the opposite faces of the blade
when water flows through it, and the remaining portion’s blade design use the
impulse force of water hitting it and this combined action of pressure difference
and impulse force generates enough power to get turbine moving at a required
speed. Thus there would be a decrease in both kinetic energy and potential
energy of water at exit, then what it has when it enters the turbine.
It is a clever design which uses both the reaction and impulse force to generate
power output better than individual impulse turbine or reaction turbines could
produce at same water head conditions.
Also Read:
Pelton Turbine Working, Main Parts, Application with Diagram
Difference Between Impulse and Reaction Turbine
Types of Wind Turbines – Horizontal Axis and Vertical Axis Wind Turbines
Main Components
The Various main components of francis turbine are:

1. Spiral casing
It is a spiral casing, with uniformly decreasing cross- section area, along the
circumference. Its decreasing cross-section area makes sure that we have a
uniform velocity of the water striking the runner blades, as we have openings for
water flow in-to the runner blades from the very starting of the casing, so flow
rate would decrease as it travels along the casing. So we reduce its cross-
section area along its circumference to make pressure uniform, thus uniform
momentum or velocity striking the runner blades.
2. Stay vanes
Stay vanes and guide vanes guides the water to the runner blades. Stay vanes
remain stationary at their position and reduces the swirling of water due to
radial flow, as it enters the runner blades. Thus making turbine more efficient.

3. Guide vanes
Water after passing through stay vanes, glides through guide vanes to enter the
runner blades. Guide vanes can change their angle thus can control the angle of
attack of water to the runner blades, making them work more efficiently.
Moreover they also regulate the flow rate of water into the runner blades thus
controlling the power output of a turbine according to the load on the turbine.

4. Runner blades
Design of the runner blades decides how well a turbine is going to perform. So
runner blades of mixed flow turbine can be divided into two parts, the upper
part of the blades use the reaction force of water flowing through it and the
lower half is in the shape of a small bucket using the impulse action of water
flowing through it. These two forces together makes the runner to rotate.

5. Draft tube
Draft tube connects the runner exit to the tail race. Its cross-section area
increases along its length, as the water coming out of runner blades is at
considerably low pressure, so its expanding cross-section area help it to recover
the pressure as it flows towards tail race.

Working of Francis Turbine

Water enters the turbine through spiral casing, and starts entering the runner
blades, passing through stay vanes and guide vanes, as it moves along the
 length of casing the decreasing cross-section area of the spiral casing makes
sure that the pressure energy of water would remain uniform along its length, as
a portion of water is also entering the runner blades, which would reduce its flow
rate along the length of the casing. The stay vanes being stationary at their
place, removes the swirls from the water, which are generated due to flow
through spiral casing and tries it to make the flow of water more linear to be
deflected by adjustable guide vanes. The angle of guide vanes decides the angle
of attack of water at the runner blades thus make sure the output of the turbine.
Guide vanes also controls the flow rate of water in-to the runner blades thus
acting according the load on the turbine. The runner blades are stationary and
can-not pitch or change their angle so it’s all about the guide vanes which
controls the power output of a turbine.
Further-more the upper part of runner blades are designed in such a way that
they use the pressure difference between the opposite faces of a blade created
by water flowing through it, same as the air-foil uses the pressure difference to
generate lift force. And the remaining part of the blade is designed like a small
bucket, which makes use of water’s kinetic energy. Thus runner blades make use
of both pressure energy and kinetic energy of water and rotates the runner in
most efficient way.
The water coming out of runner blades would lack both the kinetic energy and
pressure energy, so we use the draft tube to recover the pressure as it advances
towards tail race, but still we cannot recover the pressure to that extent that we
can stop air to enter into the runner housing thus causing cavitation.

What is Cavitation?
Difference in the pressure of water entering the turbine and that exists after
striking the runner blades is too high, due to this pressure difference the air
molecules which are relatively at high pressure then water coming out, enters
the turbine casing in the form of bubbles. These bubble keeps on exploding near
the surface of the runner blades continuously causing a shock wave, which
produces a kind of defect at runners surface called cavitation, thus causing a
serious problem for turbines efficiency. So what can we do is to prevent blades
from cavitation? One solution is to use a really hard surface material like
stainless steel or we can also go with surface Hardening of the runner blades, to
prevent them from cavitation.

Applications
 Francis turbine is the most widely used turbine in hydro-power plants to
generate electricity.
 Mixed flow turbine is also used in irrigation water pumping sets to pump
water from ground for irrigation.
 It is efficient over a wide range of water head and flow rate.
 It is most efficient hydro-turbine we have till date.
What is Kaplan Turbine and How It Works?

What is Kaplan Turbine?

Kaplan Turbine is an axial flow reaction turbine with adjustable blades. This turbine was developed
in the year 1913 by Viktor Kaplan, who was a Austrian Professor. In his design, he combined
automatically adjusted propeller blades and automatically adjusted wicket gates to obtain efficiency
over a wide range of water flow and water level.
It is also called as propeller turbine and evolved from the Francis Turbine. It is capable of working at
low head and high flow rates very efficiently which is impossible with Francis turbine.The
working range of head at which the Kaplan turbine works more efficienlty is 10 to 70 m.

Working Principle
Since it is a reaction turbine, so the reaction force of leaving water is used to turn the runner of
the Kaplan turbine, As the water flows through the twisted blades a lift force is generated in the
opposite direction of the leaving water and that lift force causes the blades to rotate.
Main Parts

1. Scroll Casing
It is a spiral type of casing that has decreasing cross section area. The water first enters into the scroll
casing and then it moves through it to the guide vanes and finally to the runner blades. It protects the
runner, runner blades guide vanes and other internal parts of the turbine from an external damage.

2. Guide Vanes and Guide

Mechanism
Guide vanes are used to direct the water to the runner blades smoothly by decreasing its swirl
velocity. If guide vanes is absent than the turbine can not work efficiently and its efficiency
decreases. The guides are adjustable in Kaplan turbine. Its opening and closing depends upon the
demand of power requirement. In case of more power output requirements, it opens wider to allow
more water to hit the blades of the rotor and when low power output requires it closes itself to cease
the flow of water.

3. Runner and Runner Blades

 Runner is the rotating part of the turbine or we can say that it is the heart of the Kaplan turbine. Its
shaft is connected to the shaft of the generator. The runner of the this turbine has a large boss on
which its blades are attached and the the blades of the runner is adjustable to an optimum angle of
attack for maximum power output. The blades of the Kaplan turbine has twist along its length.

Why twist is given to the blades of the runner in Kaplan turbine?

The runner blades has twist along its length in order to have always optimum angle of attack for all
cross section of blades to achieve greater efficiency.

4. Draft Tube
It is a tube which is used to increases the pressure of the fluid or water that exits the turbine. It has
increasing cross section area. Draft tube is used only in reaction turbine. It increases the pressure of
the water that leaves the runner blades. Since the water at exit of the turbine has very low pressure
and if its pressure is not increased than the back flow of the tail race water takes which can damage
the turbine. So to increase the pressure of the exiting water we uses draft tube. It converts the kinetic
energy of the water into pressure energy as it passes through draft tube and the pressure of the water
increases. The draft tube has to increases the pressure of the water upto such an extent that it must
always greater than the pressure of tail race water and prevents the back flow of water from the tail
race to the turbine. If it does not happens than cavitation may results and causes damage to the
turbine.

Working
The water from the pen-stock enters into the scroll casing. The water moves into the scroll casing and
the guide vanes directs the water from the casing to the blades of the runner. The vanes are adjustable
and can adjust itself according to the requirement of flow rate. As the water moves over the blades it
starts rotating due to reaction force of the water. The blades in the Kaplan turbine is also adjustable.
From the runner blades, the water enters into the draft tube where its pressure energy and kinetic
energy decreases. Actually here the K.E. is gets converted into pressure energy results in increased
pressure of the water. Finally the water discharged to the trail race. The rotation of the turbine is used
to rotate the shaft of generator for electricity production and for some other mechanical work.

Advantages
 It can work more efficiently at low water head and high flow rates as
compared with other types of turbines.
 It is smaller in size.
 It is easy to construct and space requirement is less.
 The Efficiency of Kaplan turbine is very high as compares with other hydraulic
turbine.

Disadvantages
Cavitation is the major problem in this turbine. Use of draft tube and proper material generally
stainless steel for the runner blades may reduce the cavitation problem to a greater extent.
Application
This turbine is used in power generation (mostly electricity) where water is available at low head and
at higher flow rates.

Difference Between Impulse and Reaction

Turbine

In this article we will discuss about all the major difference between impulse and reaction turbine.
These both types of turbine are used in power plants for the generation of electricity. Instead of their
same work of producing electricity, they are differing from each other in much respect. Here will discuss
about various differences among them in detail.
 Difference Between Impulse and
Reaction Turbine
S.n Impulse Turbine Reaction Turbine
o
In the reaction turbine, first the steam flow
In impulse turbine the steam flows through the through the guide mechanism and then flo
1. nozzle and strike on the moving blades. through the moving blades.
The steam glides over the moving blades w
2. Steam strikes on the buckets with kinetic energy. both pressure and kinetic energy.
During the flow of steam through moving blades, During the flow of steam through moving
3. its pressure remains constant. blades its pressure reduces.
The steam may or may not be admitted to the The steam must be admitted over the who
4. whole circumference. circumference.
The blades of reaction turbine are not
5. The blades of impulse turbine are symmetrical. symmetrical.
While gliding over the blades the relative velocity In reaction turbine, while gliding over the
6. of steam remains constant. blades the relative velocity of steam increa
For the same power developed, the number of For the same power developed, the numbe
7. stages required is less. stages required is more.
The direction of steam flow is radial to the The direction of steam flow is radial and ax
8. direction of turbine wheel. the turbine wheel.
9. It requires less maintenance work. It requires more maintenance work.
10. It is suitable for low discharge. It is suitable for medium and high discharg
Francis turbine, Kaplan turbine etc. are the
examples of reaction
11. Pelton Wheel is the example of impulse turbine. turbine.

Comparison Between Impulse

and Reaction Turbine
 In impulse turbine the steam flows through the nozzle and strikes on the
moving blades. In reaction turbine steam first flows through the guide mechanism
and then flows through the moving blades.
 In impulses turbine, steam strikes on the moving blades with kinetic energy
only. But in the reaction turbine, the steam which glides over the moving blades
possesses both pressure and kinetic energy.
 In impulse turbine the pressure of steam remains constant during its flow
through the moving blades. But in reaction turbine, the pressure of steam reduces
during its flow through the moving blades.
 In impulse turbine the steam may or may not be admitted to the whole
circumference. In reaction turbine the steam must be admitted to the whole
circumference.
 The blades of the impulse turbine are symmetrical where as in reaction
turbine it is not symmetrical.
 The relative velocity of steam in impulse turbine remains constant but in
Reaction turbine it increases while gliding over the blades.
 For the same power developed, the number of stages required in impulse
turbine is less where as in reaction turbine the number of stages required is more.
 The steam flow in impulse turbine is radial to the turbine wheel where as in
reaction turbine steam flow is radial and axial to the turbine wheel.
 If we talk about the maintenance work, then impulse turbine has less
maintenance work as compared with the reaction turbine.
 Impulse turbine is suitable where discharge is low and reaction turbine is
suitable for medium and high discharge.
 Pelton wheel is the example of impulse turbine whereas Francis turbine,
Kaplan turbine etc. are the examples of reaction turbine