Efficiency Testing of Pelton Turbines with Artificial Defects—Part 1: Buckets

Florian Fahrni, Thomas Staubli () and Ernesto Casartelli
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Florian Fahrni: Lucerne School of Engineering and Architecture, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, 6048 Horw, Switzerland
Thomas Staubli: Lucerne School of Engineering and Architecture, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, 6048 Horw, Switzerland
Ernesto Casartelli: Lucerne School of Engineering and Architecture, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, 6048 Horw, Switzerland

Energies, 2025, vol. 18, issue 11, 1-22

Abstract: Pelton turbines are susceptible to hydro-abrasive erosion from sediment-laden flows, resulting in a progressive loss of efficiency. Typical defect classes can be derived from the analysis of such damage observed in hydropower plants. A systematic strategy was developed to investigate the effect of locally damaged Pelton runners on the efficiency in laboratory tests using a model turbine. For this purpose, nine identical runners were fabricated and machined with an increasing size, depth, or number of different artificial defect types, such as splitter, rounded or sharp-edged, defects at the cutout, defects in the bucket base, and added ripples on the bucket sides. The processing steps, the efficiency measurement, and the extracted slopes of the efficiency drops are discussed in detail. The main findings are that the efficiency losses due to the various defects increase in a good approximation linearly with the machining depth and that the individual defect types can be superimposed. Defects at the splitter, bucket base, and bucket side dominate the losses at partial load of the turbine, while those at the cutout dominate at full load. Based on the results of this measurement campaign, power plant operators can estimate the magnitude of efficiency losses in their plant.

Keywords: Pelton turbines; hydro-abrasive erosion; model Pelton test rig; efficiency measurements; hill chart measurements; uncertainty analysis; bucket defects (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: 2025
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