Fully coupled FSI analysis of Francis turbines exposed to sediment erosion

Abstract

Sediment erosion is one of the key challenges in hydraulic turbines from a design and maintenance perspective in Himalayas. The present study focuses on choosing the best design in terms of blade angle distribution of a Francis turbine runner which has least erosion effect without influencing the efficiency and the structural integrity. A fully coupled Fluid-Structure-Interaction (FSI) analysis was performed through a multi-field solver, which showed that the maximum stress induced in the optimized design for better sediment handling, is less than that induced in the reference design. Some numerical validation techniques have been shown for both CFD and FSI analysis.