Open-Source Implementation and Validation of a 3D Inverse Design Method for Francis Turbine Runners

Sebastián Leguizamón and François Avellan
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Sebastián Leguizamón: Laboratory for Hydraulic Machines, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Avenue de Cour 33 bis, 1007 Lausanne, Switzerland
François Avellan: Laboratory for Hydraulic Machines, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Avenue de Cour 33 bis, 1007 Lausanne, Switzerland

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 8, 1-21

Abstract: The hydraulic design of Francis turbines and pump-turbines is an expensive project-specific engineering effort that typically involves a direct iterative exploration of the design space. An inverse design method for turbomachinery has been previously introduced in the literature, and several recent applications have demonstrated its advantages; however, only a commercial implementation of the method is currently available. In this work, an open-source implementation of the inverse design method is introduced. First, the governing equations in cylindrical and curvilinear coordinate systems are derived, consolidating the somewhat inconsistent formulations that are available in the literature. Then, a convergence analysis of the method is performed in order to characterize the behavior of the discretization error and deduce the mesh resolution requirements. A validation of the method output with respect to high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics simulations is then presented; it is demonstrated that the velocity fields are well predicted, the pressure distribution on the blades is reasonably well approximated, and the flow angular momentum extraction is achieved in the prescribed manner. Possible improvements to the open-source implementation of the method are discussed.

Keywords: Francis turbine; inverse design; open-source software; computational fluid dynamics; numerical simulation; hydraulic turbomachine (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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