CFD approach for design optimization and validation for axial flow hydraulic turbine

Abstract

The conventional method to assess turbine performance is its model testing which becomes costly and time consuming for several design alternatives in design optimization. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has become a cost effective tool for predicting detailed flow information in turbine space to enable the selection of best design. In the present paper, 3D real flow analysis in an experimentally tested axial flow turbine has been carried out and different flow parameters are computed at three operating regimes to find the best operating regime. The computed efficiencies are critically compared with experimental values and found to bear close comparison.