Energy 104 (2016) 24e32

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Energy
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Numerical simulation of six jet Pelton turbine model

Vishal Gupta*, Vishnu Prasad, Ruchi Khare
Hydraulic Machines Research Laboratory, Department of Energy, M.A. National Institute of Technology, Bhopal, Bhopal 462003, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Hydraulic turbines are designed for the given values of head, discharge and speed but mostly operate at
Received 18 August 2014 off designed head and discharge values. Due to variation in head, operating parameters like speed and
Received in revised form discharge coefficients are changed affecting the flow and efficiency characteristics of turbine. This makes
27 February 2016
customary to assess the turbine performance at different operating parameters. Pelton turbine is the
Accepted 16 March 2016
most commonly used impulse turbine for high head power plants. The computational fluid dynamics is a
cost effective tool to assess the turbine performance in terms of local and global design and operating
parameter of turbine. In the present work, multiphase flow analysis in Pelton turbine using water and air
Keywords:
Multiphase flow
as working fluid is carried out to estimate the efficiency, blade loading, velocity and water distribution
Pelton turbine over the bucket at different operating regimes of the turbine. The effect of mesh size, turbulence model
Numerical simulation and time step is also studied for transient multiphase flow simulation.
Runner © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Nozzle

1. Introduction improvement in computer speed and memory made possible to

Pelton turbine is used for high head and low discharge. It is low
specific speed turbine. The runner of this turbine has buckets
attached around the periphery of a circular disc. Nozzle is fitted in
distributor to convert all the available energy of water into kinetic
energy and water is issued in the form of jet. The number of nozzles
depends on the specific speed of the turbine. The jet flow and flow
on runner bucket is free surface and this makes flow simulation
complex due to multiphase fluid. Water jet with high velocity im-
pinges at the centre of the concave surface of buckets. The impact of
water jet on bucket exerts force on bucket which in turn produces
torque on the shaft of turbine leading to its rotation. The shape of
bucket is double hemispherical cup. The convex surface of the
bucket is designed such that the water leaving any bucket should
not interfere with the bucket preceding it [1]. The performance
analysis of turbine under different operating conditions is an
important aspect to find its suitability [2].
The physical model testing is the most commonly used for
assessing performance of turbine but this is time consuming, costly
and does not provide details of local parameters [3]. The
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ91 8989717204.
E-mail address: vishalgupta.manit@gmail.com (V. Gupta).
solve complex flow equations to find detailed flow behaviour in the
flow domain [4]. The geometry of flow domain can be altered to get
the desired flow pattern.
Initially, the CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) analysis of
Pelton turbine was done by Perrig et al. by considering five buckets
(one-fourth of the runner). The computed results were compared
with experimental results at BEP (Best Efficiency Point). Zoppe et al.
performed flow analysis inside stationary Pelton turbine bucket
using commercially available CFD code Fluent and validated the
results experimentally [5].
The flow simulation of Pelton turbine needs validation, grid
refinement, large computational facilities [6e11]. Konnur et al. [12]
have simulated flow on stationary flat plate and applied it to Pelton
bucket. Islam et al. [13] have used composite material for
manufacturing Pelton wheel and tested it. The variation in torque
and power output is studied by Xiao [14] and Zhang [15,16].
Theoretical analysis on flow dynamics and pressure distribution in
Pelton bucket have been carried out by Zhang, Binaya and Santolin,
[17e21]. But no work has been reported on assessment of Pelton
turbine performance numerically at off design operating
conditions.
In the present paper, numerical flow simulation of a six jet
Pelton turbine shown in Fig. 1 has been carried out to find its
performance at different rotational speed including design speed
using commercial CFD code.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2016.03.110
0360-5442/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 V. Gupta et al. / Energy 104 (2016) 24e32 25

Fig. 1. Pelton turbine model used for analysis.

2. Governing equations 3. Geometric modelling

The continuity, momentum and energy equations [22,23] based The geometry of flow domain is one of the basic input for flow
on conservation of mass, momentum and energy respectively are simulation The flow domain of Pelton turbine consists of distributor
partial differential flow equations. and runner. In the present work, stator consisting jets and rotor
The flow in Pelton turbine is multiphase because of flow of jet consisting buckets are considered for simulation. The buckets of
water and on surface of buckets is surrounded by air. Free surface Pelton are arranged axi-symmetric and double hemispherical cup
flow refers to the multiphase flow situation where two fluids are shaped. The water from jet is equally distributed by splitter. Hence
physically separated by distinct resolvable inter-phase [24]. The half section of three jets in stator and 10 buckets of runner have
homogeneous multiphase flow is commonly used for free surface been considered for flow simulation due to limitation of compu-
flow simulations. The governing equations for multiphase flow are tational facility. The geometric modelling of stator and rotor have
Continuity equation: been done in Ansys ICEM CFD. The flow domains of stator and rotor
are connected through interfaces. The geometry of stator and rotor
vrm !
!  are shown in Figs. 2 and 3.
þ V  rm W m ¼ 0 (1)
vt
4. Mesh generation and boundary conditions
where the mixture density rm and the mixture relative flow ve-
!
locity W m are computed as
The flow space of stator and rotor domain is discretised into
small elements forming a mesh. The prismatic elements are used
X
2
near bucket surface and jet wall and tetrahedral elements are used
rm ¼ an rn (2)
n¼1

P2 !
! n¼1 an rn W n
Wm¼ (3)
rm

where the volume fraction an is given by

Vn
an ¼ P2 (4)
n¼1 Vn
Momentum equation:

v
! 
! ! !
r W m þ rm W m  V W m
vt m
! ! !
¼  V pm þ V ðtm þ ttm Þ  rm ! u !
u  ð! r m Þ  2!
u Wm
!
þ f m
(5) Fig. 2. Geometry of stator domain.
26 V. Gupta et al. / Energy 104 (2016) 24e32

Time step corresponding to 1 runner rotation (sec):

60
Dt ¼ (9)
360  N
Speed coefficient:

pND
4¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi (10)
60 2  g  H
Blade loading coefficient:

P
Cp ¼ 1 (11)
2 rC1
2

Velocity coefficient:

V
Fig. 3. Geometry of rotor domain. Kv ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi (12)
2gH
Loss coefficient:

in rest of flow domain. The prism layer has been applied to jet wall W2
KL ¼ (13)
and bucket surface to capture the flow accurately. The stator mesh W1
has 456,213 nodes and 2,146,945 elements and rotor mesh has Discharge coefficient:
1,415,878 nodes and 7,098,630 elements.
The stator domain consisting of jets is kept stationary while the 4Q
KQ ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi (14)
rotor domain has been set at different rotational speed to vary the p  B2  Z  2gH
operating regime of turbine. SST keu turbulence model is consid-
ered for analysis to capture the sharp curvatures and complexities Torque coefficient:
in the flow.
T
The flow parameters like pressure and velocity or mass flow are KT ¼ (15)
required to be specified at inlet and outlet as boundary conditions. r  U12  B  L  D
The water velocity of 30.7 m/s normal to jet inlet has been given as
inlet boundary. As pressure around the jet and runner is atmo-
spheric so opening type boundary conditions are applied at open-
ings at stator and rotor with relative pressure of 0 atmospheric and 6. Results and discussions
the reference pressure of 1 atmospheric pressure is taken. Transient
flow simulation has been done with time step corresponding to l 6.1. Mesh independency test
runner rotation.
Symmetry surfaces of jet, stator, rotor have been defined as In numerical simulation, mesh size greatly affects the accuracy
symmetry condition. Periodicity has been applied at both sym- and convergency of results. The mesh size of flow domains is varied
metric ends of stator and rotor. The stator and rotor domains are till the reasonable accuracy is achieved. It is seen that result be-
connected through transient rotorestator interface. comes independent of stator mesh at 456,213 nodes and 2,146,945
elements.
For rotor domain, trials of flow simulation are carried for 100 of
5. Parameter computation runner rotation by varying the mesh size with time step corre-
sponding to 1 rotation.
The jet of water is deflected at outlet angle of buckets causing It is seen from Table 1 and Fig. 4 that the efficiency and torque
momentum change. This momentum change exerts force on bucket become nearly independent of rotor mesh after 1,415,878 nodes
and torque on turbine shaft to rotate it. Following formulae are and 7,098,630 elements. The quality of mesh is checked and is
used for calculation of turbine parameters: found within the recommended values of ANSYS CFX.
Theoretical power input (Watts):

PI ¼ r  g  Q  H (6) 6.2. Effect of turbulence model

The actual output power is less than the above calculated value The keε model with scalable wall function and SST keu tur-
because of frictional losses. bulent model given by Menter with automatic wall function are
Power output (Watts):

2pNT Table 1
PO ¼ (7) Mesh size variation.
60
Hydraulic efficiency (%): Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Trial 4

Nodes in stator 456,213 456,213 456,213 456,213

Po Nodes in rotor 144,796 1,209,950 1,415,878 1,537,618
hh ¼  100 (8) Total nodes 601,009 1,666,163 1,872,091 1,993,831
PI
CPU time (hours) 18 65 75 77
Efficiency (%) 74.21 85.54 88.01 88.03
 V. Gupta et al. / Energy 104 (2016) 24e32 27

Table 2
Variation in efficiency with turbulence model.

Turbulence model Time step (sec) CPU time (hours) Efficiency (%)

keε with scalable wall function 2.032  104 69 85.95

SST keu with automatic wall function 2.032  104 77 88.03

600

575
Rotor Torque
(N-m)

550

525

500
0 500000 1000000 1500000
Number of nodes Fig. 5. Water sheet flowing over buckets at BEP.

Fig. 4. Variation in rotor torque with mesh nodes.

The water volume fraction (iso-surface) in Fig. 5 indicates that

used for simulation to study their effect. SST keu model gives
better result than keε turbulence model (Table 2) because SST keu
model is able to capture all turbulent scales of flow in the region of
higher shear stresses [10].
6.3. Effect of time step
In transient analysis, the time step plays a vital role on accuracy
and stability of numerical solution. Time steps are the intervals at
which CFX-Solver calculates the flow parameters. Time steps cor-
responding to 1, 1.5 and 2 of runner rotation are considered for
efficiency calculation and it is observed from Table 3 that the effi-
ciency decreases as time step increases.
The calculation for time step corresponding to less than 0.5
could not be checked due to limitation of computational facility.
There is no significant change in efficiency for time step less than 1
runner rotation and hence the time step value for at 1 is consid-
ered for all further simulations.
the profile of Pelton bucket is perfect as no flow separation is seen.
Water from the bucket escapes without striking the back of pre-
ceding bucket and no negative torque is experienced by the runner.
The interference of jet by buckets can be easily observed and un-
derstood with the help of numerical simulation which is very
difficult to observe experimentally. There is little distortion of jet
when water jet enters the runner domain from stator domain.
The highest pressure in Fig. 6 is observed in the deepest
segment of bucket. The splitter of bucket also experiences higher
pressure as it receives water with maximum momentum.
The torque increases linearly till 60 rotation indicating the
position of bucket normal to jet as shown in Fig. 7. After this, the
torque value fluctuates as rotation increases because buckets meet
the jet one after another and jet water is distributed on more than
one bucket. The torque values from 50 to 100 are averaged out for
power output calculations.
The efficiency for five operating points including BEP is
computed and compared with model test results. The comparison

6.4. Distribution of water, pressure and torque

The flow simulation has been carried out at five different

operating regimes keeping head constant. The visualisation of
water volume fraction (iso-surface) and pressure distribution
within the runner domain at BEP (best efficiency point) are shown
in Figs. 6 and 7.

Table 3
Variation in efficiency with different time steps.

Time step (sec) Runner rotation (degree) CPU time (hours) Efficiency (%)

1.016  104 0.5 155 88.05

2.032  104 1.0 54 88.03
3.046  104 1.5 37 79.23
4.064  104 2.0 27 75.26
Fig. 6. Pressure contour on buckets at BEP.
28 V. Gupta et al. / Energy 104 (2016) 24e32

700.00 of normalised experimental and simulated values of efficiency is

shown in Fig. 8.
600.00 The variation in efficiency values from CFD are in close agree-
ment with experimental results. The highest efficiency is obtained
500.00 nearly at same speed coefficient and efficiency decreases in both
Rotor torque (N-m)

the cases either side of this speed coefficient. There is 3.5% variation
400.00 between experimental and computed values of efficiency at BEP.
The pressure variation on bucket and other hydrodynamic pa-
300.00 rameters can be better understood with the help of stream and
span wise plots.
200.00 The streamwise pressure variations at different spans of bucket
shown in Fig. 9 depict that 0.25 span of bucket coming in front of jet
100.00 have high pressure near to splitter. It is also seen that buckets which
are directly in front of jet experience high pressure at mid span.
0.00 High pressure is observed at 0.75 span when water is about to leave
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 the bucket.

Fig. 7. Variation of torque on rotor with angle of rotation at BEP. 6.5. Effect of operating regime

Each turbine is designed for rated speed and the performance of

1.05
turbine decreases at under and over speed conditions because of
mismatching of flow and bucket angles. The performance of Pelton
1.00
runner at seven rotational speeds varying from 600 to 1050 rpm
0.95 has been assessed. In transient simulations, Courant number plays
an important role and to keep Courant number same for every
0.90 simulation case, the time step was fixed 2.032  104 s.
/ BEP

0.85 Numerical
6.5.1. Streamwise variation of pressure
0.80 Experimental It is observed from blade loading at different blade span and
speed in Figs. 10e12 that value of blade loading coefficient is
0.75
maximum at the splitter and mid of the bucket as compared to
other segments of the bucket. Further the blade loading is
0.70
0.32 0.37 0.42 0.47 0.52 0.57 0.62 maximum at 820 rpm (BEP) at all spans because of jet is least
Speed coefficient ( ) interfered by buckets. Secondly the blade loading is seen more
uniform at the mid span of bucket as the jet strikes to on bucket
Fig. 8. Comparison of efficiency. near this point.

Fig. 9. Pressure contour at different spans of runner at BEP.

 V. Gupta et al. / Energy 104 (2016) 24e32 29

0.25
Blade loading coefficient

0.20 Speed
coefficient
0.15 0.352
0.481
0.10
0.525
0.05 0.616

0.00
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
Streamwise
Fig. 13. Variation in absolute velocity at 0.25 span.
Fig. 10. Blade loading at 0.25 span.

0.50
1.40

Absolute velocity coefficient

0.45
1.20 Speed
0.40 1.00
Speed coefficient
Blade loading coefficient

0.35 coefficient 0.80 0.352

0.30 0.352 0.60 0.481
0.25 0.481 0.40 0.525
0.20
0.525 0.20
0.616
0.616 0.00
0.15
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
0.10 Streamwise
0.05
Fig. 14. Variation in absolute velocity at 0.50 span.
0.00
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
Streamwise
6.5.3. Variation of water volume fraction
Fig. 11. Blade loading at 0.50 span.
The variations in water volume fraction at 0.25, 0.50 and 0.75
span for different speed shown in Figs. 16e18 depict that most of
water flows through middle part of bucket because this part re-
mains in touch with water. It is also seen that water volume fraction
6.5.2. Variation of absolute velocity
at 0.25 and 0.75 span increases from splitter to exit of bucket as the
In Pelton turbine, water jet having high kinetic energy enters the
speed of rotation increases. It is because of spreading of water sheet
buckets and this energy is extracted from water as it flows along
when it leaves the bucket.
runner bucket. This results in decrease of absolute velocity of water
The mass averaged computed values of velocity coefficients in
at exit of bucket at all rotational speeds as shown in Figs.13e15 at
Table 4 indicate that there is decrease in absolute velocity from
three spans of bucket.
inlet to outlet because of extraction of kinetic energy. The whirl
velocity at outlet at 600 rpm is opposite to jet velocity and after this
it has same direction of tangential velocity and increases with
rotational speed. The flow angle decreases as the speed increases
0.06

0.05 Speed
Blade loading coefficient

coefficient
0.04
0.352
0.03
0.481
0.02 0.525
0.616
0.01

0.00
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
Streamwise
Fig. 15. Variation in absolute velocity at 0.75 span.
Fig. 12. Blade loading at 0.75 span.
30 V. Gupta et al. / Energy 104 (2016) 24e32

Fig. 16. Variation in water volume fraction at 0.25 span.

because of increase in tangential velocity and decrease in absolute
velocity.
The decrease in torque with increase in speed in Table 5 in-
dicates the characteristic feature of Pelton turbine. It is seen that
loss and flow coefficient increase with increase in speed due to
variation in quantity of water flowing.
The best efficiency is achieved at the rated speed of turbine and
it decreases either side of the rated speed. This variation is similar
to efficiency characteristics of Pelton turbine.
From Table 6, it is observed that most of water leaves axially in
all the cases but has the highest proportion about rated speed. The
quantity of water leaving radially inward of runner decreases with
increase in speed while radially outward flow follows opposite
trend to that of axial flow.
7. Conclusions
The time step, turbulence models, mesh size plays an important
role on accuracy of flow simulation in transient multiphase flow.
The velocities, flow angles, quantity of water passing axially and
radial are affected by rotational speed of runner. The maximum
blade loading occurs near the middle of stream and span.
The variation in efficiency with speed is parabolic and there is
3.5% variation between experimental and computed values at BEP.

Fig. 17. Variation in water volume fraction at 0.5 span.

 V. Gupta et al. / Energy 104 (2016) 24e32 31

Fig. 18. Variation in water volume fraction at 0.75 span.

Table 4
Average values of velocity coefficients at different speed.

Speed (rpm) 600 820 895 1050

Flow parameters Inlet Outlet Inlet Outlet Inlet Outlet Inlet Outlet

Relative velocity coefficient 0.64 0.48 0.51 0.46 0.46 0.45 0.37 0.36
Absolute velocity coefficient 1.00 0.24 1.00 0.18 1.00 0.19 1.00 0.31
Whirl velocity coefficient 1.00 0.07 1.00 0.06 1.00 0.11 1.00 0.29
Flow angle at outlet 0.00 28.03 0.00 21.10 0.00 19.27 0.00 18.66

Table 5 Q volume flow rate of fluid at jet inlet (m3/s)

Average values of non-dimensional parameters at different speed. T torque on runner (N-m)
Rotational speed (rpm) Speed coefficient (F) K T K L K Q hh (%) P density of water at 20  C (997 kg/m3)
600 0.352 0.209 0.756 0.077 73.10
Z no. of buckets
820 0.481 0.185 0.899 0.077 88.03 hE experimental efficiency (%)
895 0.525 0.162 0.960 0.077 84.51 hH hydraulic efficiency (%)
1050 0.626 0.120 0.957 0.077 67.22 4 speed coefficient

Table 6
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