Experimental and numerical studies on flow and torque mechanisms of open cross-flow hydraulic turbine

Abstract The flow and torque mechanisms of an open cross-flow hydraulic turbine in an underflow operation are investigated through experiments and numerical simulations. The unsteady flow field around a hydraulic turbine is measured in an open-circuit water tunnel using phase-averaged particle image velocimetry, and the results are compared with those of a two-dimensional numerical simulation using the volume of fluid method for two-phase flow analysis. The experimental and numerical results of the flow field agree well with each other, suggesting the validity of the two-dimensional numerical simulation for open cross-flow hydraulic turbines. The experimental and numerical results indicate that both the accelerated flows over the downstream blade and through the bottom spacing between the turbine and channel wall yielded the positive torque generation of the cross-flow turbine. The former effect is caused by the stagnation pressure on the concave side of the blade and the formation of accelerated flow on the convex side of the blade, both of which are observed at a low tip-speed ratio. The latter effect of bottom spacing is caused by the converging flow effect of the local velocity between the lower side of the turbine and the channel wall. It is discovered that these flow features improved by decreasing the bottom spacing, and that they contributed to the local torque generation; consequently, the torque performance and efficiency of the cross-flow turbine improved. However, very small bottom spacing may not be effective for improving the efficiency.