Alexandria Engineering Journal (2022) 61, 2376–2385

H O S T E D BY
Alexandria University

Alexandria Engineering Journal

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Influence of internal blade-interactions on the added

mass and added damping of a prototype Kaplan
turbine runner
Ming Zhang, Qing-guang Chen *

College of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, Shandong
Province 266590, PR China

Received 29 April 2021; revised 3 June 2021; accepted 25 June 2021

Available online 05 July 2021

KEYWORDS
Kaplan turbine runner;
Internal blade-interactions;
Acoustic fluid–structure
interaction;
One-way fluid–structure
interaction;
Fourier Transformation
Method
Abstract Different from other types of hydraulic turbines, the fluid–structure coupling vibration
behavior of Kaplan turbine runners has still been studied limited before. One problem is that their
blades can rotate according to load changes, and the internal interactions among the blades via the
flow field may produce an important influence on the added mass and added damping of the runner,
particularly when the blade angle is small. In this paper, the influence of internal blade-interactions
on the added mass and added damping of a prototype Kaplan turbine runner has been studied
numerically. An isolated stage model from the end of the stay vanes to the bottom of the hub with
six blades was considered for simulation. The Acoustic Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) technol-
ogy based on the Finite Element Method was used to investigate the added mass effect first and
to provide the modal shapes and initial frequencies for the following one-way FSI analysis based
on the Finite Volume Method. The natural frequencies predicted by the Acoustic FSI were com-
pared with those from the one-way FSI analysis to validate the simulations. Then, the influence
of internal blade-interactions on the added mass and added damping, as well as the mechanisms,
were analyzed.
Ó 2021 THE AUTHORS. Published by Elsevier BV on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria
University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction ity, the power intensity in hydraulic turbines is promoted both

for new construction and the updating of power plants[1],
Nowadays, hydropower contributes a lot to world electricity which makes the fluid pressures and velocities higher, resulting
generation. To meet the daily increasing demand for electric- in higher hydraulic excitation forces. Moreover, among all
types of renewable sources, hydropower is the only one that
* Corresponding author.
provides fast responses for the power regulation (20–100%
max power, less 1 min) to offset the unstableness of the elec-
E-mail addresses: ming.zhang@sdust.edu.cn (M. Zhang), chenqg@
sdust.edu.cn (Q.-g. Chen).
tricity grid caused by some other renewable sources, like solar
Peer review under responsibility of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria
and wind energy[2]. Therefore, hydraulic turbines operate at
University. extreme off-design conditions and experience transient events
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aej.2021.06.092
1110-0168 Ó 2021 THE AUTHORS. Published by Elsevier BV on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Influence of internal blade-interactions on the added mass and added damping 2377

Nomenclature

BD Bending mode FSI Fluid-structure interaction

FF Total modal force k Flow field pressure pattern
KF Added stiffness mH Number of horizontal nodal lines
KS Structural modal stiffness ND Nodal Diameter
MS Structural modal mass NL Nodal line
MF Added mass RSI Rotor-stator interaction
nV Number of vertical nodal lines x Modal deflection
TS Torsion mode Zb Number of blades
W Modal work xn Vibration frequency
Zv Number of guide vanes n Damping ratio
u Mode shape X0 Vibration Amplitude
xv Natural frequency in vacuum
CF Added damping

much more times one day than before, which leads to even lar-
ger forces. Such higher forces can produce higher vibration
levels to the runners, which can cause fatigue damage and
shorten their lifetime.
Kaplan turbines are one type of widely used hydraulic tur-
bines wich are mostly used in used in low water head and large
capacity hydropower plants [3], and the blades of Kaplan tur-
bine runners can rotate to make the runner operate under high
efficiencies for a wide range of operation. The typical structure
of Kaplan turbines is shown in Fig. 1. The excitation forces of
Kaplan turbine runners can be both static and dynamic pres-
sures [4,5]. The dynamic pressure mostly comes from the Rotor
Stator Interaction (RSI) [6-8]. Due to the aforementioned rea-
sons, several failure cases for Kaplan turbine runners have
been reported in the literature[9,10]. Resonances are also one
important reason to cause fatigue damage because they can
greatly increase the vibration level of runners [11]. To avoid
resonances, studying the fluid–structure coupling vibration
behavior of Kaplan turbine runners is of great significance.
The fluid–structure coupling vibration behavior of Kaplan
turbine runners has been studied very little before. In another
two papers by the author [12,13], the dynamic behavior of a
single blade with and without a crack of a prototype Kaplan
turbine was studied experimentally, but the fluid–structure
coupling vibration behavior of the runner underwater is still
not available. The fluid–structure coupling vibration behavior
Fig. 1 Close adjacent blades of Kaplan turbines.
of hydraulic turbine runners in water is severely affected by the
added mass and added damping effect from the surrounding
water, which is severely affected by the boundary conditions
of the surrounding water domain[14,15]. Researches have
shown that when a structure underwater moves closer to a
rigid wall, the added mass and damping effect will increase sig-
nificantly [14], and when it moves to a non-rigid wall, the
increases of the added mass and damping effect are usually less
significant than those of moving to a rigid wall, which depends
on the stiffness of the non-rigid wall [15].
For Kaplan turbine runners, the boundary conditions are
much simpler than those of Francis turbine runners and
pump-turbine runners, and the only nearby wall of the blades
is the chamber wall near the blade-tips. However, unlike the
Francis turbine runners and pump-turbine runners, the blades
of the Kaplan turbine runners can rotate according to the load,
and sometimes the neighboring blades can be very close and
show a partially overlapped status, just as shown in Fig. 1.
The close neighboring blade is one special type of non-rigid
wall because all the blades have the same natural frequencies
and mode shapes. When one blade gets closer to another
one, its added mass and added damping may be affected signif-
icantly due to its interaction with adjacent blades through the
fluid field, thus the fluid–structure coupling vibration behavior
of the whole runner.
The geometries of Kaplan turbine blades are similar to
those of rectangular plates. Kyeong-Hoon Jeonga [16], et al.,
used to study the vibration behavior of two fully overlapped
identical rectangular plates in water, and they found that each
mode of the rectangular plate separated into one in-phase
mode and one out-phase mode according to the vibration
direction of the two plates. The added mass of the in-phase
mode is always higher than that of the out-phase mode at each
distance, and the added mass of the in-phase mode decrease
with the distance increase, while the added mass of the out-
phase mode increases with the distance increase. However,
the added damping effect was not related, as well as there
are also no studies about the situation when two plates are par-
tially overlapped. The added mass and added damping change
with the Kaplan turbine blade rotation should be known to
avoid the resonances of the runner. The structure of Kaplan
turbine runners is similar to that of blade-disk structures.
For blade-disk structures, each mode of the single blade will
2378
form a mode family of the whole runner with different Nodal
Diameter (ND) modes [17], and the Nodal diameters (ND) are
formed by the points which remain stationary in the vibration
cycle of a mode-shape. For different ND modes, the phase
change between two adjacent blades is different, and due to
the interactions among blades, the added mass and damping
effect in water of different ND modes can probably be very dif-
ferent. For hydraulic turbines, the pressure variation of the
flow filed also has its Diameter and frequency due to the
rotor–stator interaction (RSI), which is determined by the
number combination of the stator vanes and blades [6]. Only
when both the Diameter and frequency are the same as those
of one runner mode, this mode can be exited. To know the
added mass and damping differences of different ND modes
can be helpful for avoiding resonances during operation and
for the safety design of the runner.
To experimentally determine the fluid–structure coupling
vibration behavior of hydraulic turbine runners is very difficult
because the runners are usually enclosed by the case and are
difficult to be accessed. Therefore, numerical methods are
probably an ideal way. Due to the little influence of the water
flowing on the added mass effect, it can be easily investigated
through an acoustic fluid–structure interaction (Acoustic FSI)
technology [18,19]. However, due to the significant influence of
fluid flowing on the added damping effect, its simulation is a
little difficult, but there have been some numerical methods
based on the one-way or two-way FSI simulation available
in the literature [20-22]. Generally, though the methods based
on the two-way FSI are more theoretically complete, the com-
putation cost is usually very high, which makes it not suitable
for large submerged structures, like hydraulic turbine runners.
The biggest problem of the methods based on one-way FSI is
that they need to project the modal shape from modal analysis
to the blade profiles of the CFD flow domain, which makes the
modal shape change due to the water flowing not be able to be
considered. However, the mode shape changes due to water
flowing for hydraulic turbine runners are usually not signifi-
cant. The computational cost of one-way FSI is much less than
that of two-way FSI, which makes it much more suitable for
the added damping simulation of hydraulic turbine runners.
In this paper, the influence of internal blade-interactions on
the added mass and added damping of a prototype Kaplan
turbine runner has been studied numerically. The acoustic
fluid–structure interaction (FSI) technology was used to inves-
tigate the added mass effect first and to provide the modal
shapes and initial frequencies. Then, they were applied to the
one-way FSI simulation shown in [22] to get the added mass
and added damping in flowing water. The added mass effect
of each mode from acoustic FSI and one-way FSI were com-
pared to validate the simulations. Finally, the influence and
mechanism of internal blade-interactions on the added mass
and added damping were analyzed.
2. Physical model and method
For a low damping structure in vacuum, the equation of
motion in water is [23]:
MS x€ þ KS x ¼ FF ðtÞ ð1Þ
where MS and KS are the structural modal mass and stiffness,
respectively. FF ðtÞ is the modal force on the whole structure
M. Zhang, Q.-g. Chen
induced by the fluid, and x is the modal displacement of the
structure. For one shape of the selected mode, uðx; y; zÞ, MS
and the FF ðtÞ can be calculated as:
ZZZ
MS ¼ qS u2 dV ð2Þ
X
ZZ
FF ðtÞ ¼ sðtÞ  udS ð3Þ
C
where qS is the structure density, X the structure domain, s the
fluid surface load on the structure and C the fluid–structure
interface. The damping usually has little influence on the nat-
ural frequency, and the natural frequency of the system with-
out consideration of the damping is:
KS þ KF
x2n ¼ ð4Þ
MS þ MF
and the damping ratio is:
CF
n¼ ð5Þ
2xn ðMS þ MF Þ
where MF ; KF and CF are the added mass, added stiffness
added damping obtained from the fluid, respectively. The
added mass is the mass of fluid activated due to the vibration
of the structure. The added stiffness describes the change in the
flow-induced restoring force with the deflection of the struc-
ture. The added damping represents energy extracted from
the structure as a result of work done by the fluid flow.
The parameters in Eq. (5) can be calculated by the flowing
simulations: modal analysis, steady-state CFD and transient
CFD. For one selected mode, the modal analysis is mainly
used to get the natural frequency, modal mass and stiffness
in vacuum and in water. The wet natural frequency and mode
shape will act as the initial values for the following simulation.
The steady-state CFD is mainly used to get the added stiffness
in water, and the transient CFD is mainly used to update the
added mass and calculate the added damping in water. Some
studies [22] have shown that the added stiffness of Kaplan tur-
bine blades in water is only 1%~2% of the modal stiffness in
vacuum, which will provide little influence on the final added
mass and damping. Therefore, to save the calculation time,
the steady-state CFD step will be eliminated in this paper,
and the added stiffness in water will always be seen as 0.
(i) Modal analysis in vacuum and water
A modal analysis in vacuum provides the initial circular
natural frequency xv :
KS
x2v ¼ ð6Þ
MS
The mode shape in vacuum can be extracted, and the modal
mass MS can be calculated from Eq. (2) or exported from the
FEM software directly. The modal stiffness KS can be calcu-
lated from Eq. (6).
Then, the wet modal analysis of the structure in water will
be done, which can be achieved through the Acoustic FSI tech-
nology available in Ansys. The wet modal analysis will provide
the frequency xf and mode shape in still water used in the fol-
lowing simulation. The added mass MF in still water can be
calculated from the following equation:
Influence of internal blade-interactions on the added mass and added damping 2379
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
1 KS To purely investigate the influence of internal blade-
xf ¼ ð7Þ
2p MS þ MF interactions on the fluid–structure coupling vibration behavior
of runners, only six blades submerged in the water domain
were simulated. The blade model has been validated in another
paper by the author [12]. For simple, an isolated stage without
(ii) Transient CFD analysis considering the stay vanes were investigate, and the water
domain from the end of the stay vanes to the bottom of the
The harmonic modal motion of the structure is defined as hub was considered, which is also the method used in [24] to
xðtÞ ¼ X0 sin ðxn tÞ ð8Þ investigate the added damping of different ND modes of an
aero-engine turbine runner. This simplification can certainly
By projecting the motion to the flow field, a transient CFD
make the added damping of each ND mode in one mode fam-
simulation can be done. An averaged quantity, U, can be cal-
ily some different from that when the entire flow passage is
culated as:
considered. However, unlike the influence of the trailing-edge
Z 2pN
1 t0 þ xn shape of one hydrofoil on the added damping through affect-
/¼ FF  xðtÞdt ð9Þ ing the Von-Kaman vortex sheeting in flowing water, the inter-
N t0
action mechanism of internal blade-interactions ought to have
where N is an integer number of oscillations and t0 an arbi- no relationships with the water flowing, which means that one
trary time coordinate. If the number of periods is high enough, certain ND mode with a higher added damping in still water
substituting Eq. (5) into Eq. (9) results in: ought to have a higher added damping even in flowing water.
Therefore, this simplification ought not to affect us to investi-
/ ¼ pX20 xn MF ð10Þ
gate the influence of Nodal Diameter on the added mass and
From Eqs. (9) and (10), the natural frequency can be added damping.
updated and used in the following transient CFD simulation. For the modal analysis in vacuum, only one blade was sim-
With some repetition, the convergent added mass can be ulated through Ansys Workbench19.2. The blade material is
obtained. The average modal work done by the flow on the stainless steel with Young’s modulus 1.93E + 11 Pa, a density
structure, W, can be obtained as: 7750 Kg/m3 and a Poisson’s ratio 0.31. The rod part of the
Z 2pN blade was removed, and the surface where the rod connects
1 t0 þ xn the blade profile was totally fixed. For the wet modal analysis
W¼ _
FF  xdt ð11Þ
N t0 in water, the widely used Acoustic FSI technology was used to
simulate the added mass effect from the surrounding water. A
if the number of oscillations is high enough, W goes to its con-
fully damped solver with a fluid–structure coupled algorithm
vergent value:
was implemented. The acoustic body has a density of 1000
W ¼ CF pX20 xn ð12Þ Kg/m3 and a sound speed of 1483 m/s.
The wet modal analysis was divided into two steps: first,
From Eqs. (11) and (12), CF , can be obtained for the added
only one blade in water was simulated with all other blades
damping ratio calculation in Eq. (5).
suppressed, and then, all the blades were simulated together.
The surfaces that the simulated blades connect the water
3. Simulation setup domain was set to be fluid–structure interfaces, the inlet and
outlet surface were set to be totally absorbed surfaces (the
The investigated turbine is the same one described in [12,13], absorption coefficient is 1), and all other surfaces were set to
which is located in Spain. The turbine has a head of 34 m be rigid walls (including the profiles of the suppressed blades).
and a maximum power of 73 MW. The runner has 6 blades Totally three blade-angles were investigated: 20-deg (the angle
rotating at 125 rpm, and the distributor has 24 guide vanes. nearly at the best efficiency point), 10-deg and 0-deg (totally
The flow rate at the best efficiency point is about 22.5 m3/s. closed), which has been shown in Fig. 2. A tetrahedral mesh
The diameter of the runner is about 6 m, and the tip clearance
is 0.09% the outlet diameter of the runner. Viewed from the
stationary frame, the RSI frequency depends on the rotating
speed of the runner (ff ), the number of rotating blades (Zb )
and the order of harmonics (n):
fb;n ¼ n  Zb  ff ð13Þ
The main excitation shape (k, the diameter of one excita-
tion mode) that can be calculated as:
k ¼ m  Zv  n  Zb ð14Þ
where Zv is the number of guide vanes, Zb the number of the
blades and m the order of harmonics from the rotating view.
The highest amplitudes are obtained for the minimum values
of |k|. For the turbine studied, the minimizes |k| is obtained
from m = 1 and n = 4 with k = 0. For m = 1, n = 4 and
k = 0, the nominal speed 125 rpm corresponds to an RSI fre-
quency 50 Hz. Fig. 2 Blade angles investigated.
2380 M. Zhang, Q.-g. Chen

was used with shared nodes at the fluid–structure interface.

The mesh when the blade angle is 0-deg is shown in Fig. 3
(a). The natural frequencies of only one blade in water will
be used as the initial frequencies in the following one-way
FSI simulation, and the final natural frequencies predicted
by the one-way FSI simulation will be compared with those
of all the blades in water predicted by the Acoustic FSI to val-
idate our simulations.
The transient CFD analysis was done through Ansys CFX
19.2. The amplitude of the blade vibration was set to be
0.0005 m, which was also used in [22]. The turbulence model
used was the standard k–e model, which has been demon-
strated to be reliable in [22] for added damping simulation.
Scalable wall functions were applied to near-wall regions. To
simulate the added mass and damping of different ND modes,
a Fourier Transformation Method was implemented, which
allows people to use only two single blade passages to simulate Fig. 4 Mesh sensitivity test versus element number per passage.
the entire flow field with different ND blade motions[25]. For
every case, a total of 15 periods of oscillation was simulated.
The mesh and time step sensitivities were strictly checked, 4. Results and discussion
which has been shown in Fig. 4. For one single blade passage,
about 500 K unstructured cells were used, and boundary layers 4.1. Results validation
on the blade profiles were created with the y + lower than 300.
A backward Euler second-order time integration scheme was Generally, the most common mode shapes of a single blade are
implimented in the analysis. The view of the single blade pas- usually bending (BD) and torsion (TS). For a torsion mode, it
sage mesh for the 0-deg is shown in Fig. 3(b). The time step can usually be marked as TS ðmH , nV ), where mH and nV are
was selected as 400 sub-steps per period. A double-precision the horizontal and vertical nodal line numbers, respectively.
solver was selected for calculation via a 24-cores cloud The first four modes shapes and natural frequencies of the sin-
computer. gle blade in vacuum and in water when the blade angle is 0-deg
A velocity inlet was used for the inlet boundary. For a cer- have been shown in Fig. 5. Fig. 6 shows the mode shapes of
tain blade angle, the flow rate can be different for different different ND modes in the BD mode family when six blades
loads. For the blade angle of 20-deg, the normal flow rate of are simulated together in water. One will find that the mode
22.5 m3/s was used corresponding to an inlet velocity of shapes of the single blade model in vacuum are approximately
5.12 m/s. The turbulence intensity at the inlet was set to be the same with those in water, but when all the blades simulated
1%. To investigate the added damping change via the blade together in water, the mode shapes on the blade with maxi-
angle, keeping the flow velocity passing the blades the same mum displacement become more different from those of the
is ideal, but this is difficult. In this paper, we simply set the single blade model in vacuum, particular for the 0 ND mode.
inlet velocity to be 2.2 m/s for 10-deg and 0.7 m/s for 0-deg To evaluate the influence of this mode shape differences on
to make the mean flow velocity at the channel cut-plane of the fluid–structure coupling vibration behavior, both the Bend-
trailing-edge approximately the same as that of 20-deg. A pres- ing mode shape of the single blade in vacuum and the mode
sure outlet was used, and the pressure was set to be 0. shape on the blade with maximum displacement of 0 ND
Bending mode in water were projected for the one-way FSI
simulation of the 0 ND Bending mode, and the results were
compared. The last 10 periods of modal forces on the blade

Fig. 3 View of the mesh a) Mesh for the Acoustic FSI b) Mesh Fig. 5 Mode shapes of the single blade model in vacuum and in
for the one-way FSI. water (0-deg).
Influence of internal blade-interactions on the added mass and added damping 2381

Fig. 6 Mode shapes of different ND modes in the Bending mode
family in water (0-deg).
Fig. 7
mented, and this was also applied to all other cases in this
paper. As can be seen, the projection of the 0 ND mode shape
in water yields a frequency 0.86% higher than that of the single
blade in vacuum, which demonstrates that the mode shape
changes from vacuum to water and the differences among dif-
ferent ND modes have little influence on the fluid–structure
coupling vibration behavior. The mode shape of the single
blade in vacuum under the corresponding blade angle was used
for all the cases of different ND Bending modes under differ-
ent blade angles in the rest parts.
All the simulated natural frequencies from the Acoustic FSI
and the one-way FSI for different ND modes in the Bending
mode family have been shown in Table 2. The errors between
the Acoustic FSI and One-way FSI are less than 3%, even
though the influence of the added stiffness is not considered.
Under each blade angle, the one-way FSI yields a frequency
sequence of different ND modes approximately the same as
that of Acoustic FSI. Overall, the limited errors between the
Acoustic FSI based on the Finite Element Method and the
One-way FSI based on the Finite Volume Method validate
our simulations.
The frequencies of BD modes are a little lower than the RSI
frequency, which determines that they are more prone to be
exited during the star-up stage or load variations. Due to the
high computational cost of one-ways FSI simulation, it was
only done for the different ND modes of the BD mode family
under different blade angles. In the following parts, the natural
frequency and added mass analysis will be conducted on the
results of Acoustic FSI, which can show the results of different
mode families. The added damping analysis will be conducted
Modal forces.
on the results of one-way FSI for the BD mode family.

4.2. Influence of internal blade-interactions on the added mass

Table 1 Frequency interactives. effect
Mode Shape Projected
Single blade 0 ND The normalized added masses and natural frequencies of dif-
ferent ND modes under different blade angles (normalized to
Initial Frq. (Hz) 39.24 39.24
the smallest value of all blade angles) have been shown in
Step 1 (Hz) 34.69 34.98
Step 2 (Hz) 34.41 34.65
Fig. 8 and Fig. 9, respectively. The influence of the Nodal
Diameter and blade angle on the natural frequencies and
added massed decreases with order increase of the mode fam-
ilies, and the influence is most significant for the Bending mode
with maximum displacement projected with these two mode family. For the Bending mode family, 0 ND is most sensitive
shapes have been shown in Fig. 7. The interactives of the nat- to the blade angle, and its natural frequency can increase more
ural frequencies have been shown in Table 1. Because from than 20% with a decrease of the added mass higher than 60%
step 1 to step 2 the frequency changes have been limited, from totally close to totally open. Therefore, the frequency
totally two-step interactives for each mode shape were imple- changes due to the blade angle change should be paid attention

Table 2 Frequency comparison between the results of Acoustic FSI and One-way FSI.
0 ND 1 ND 2 ND 3 ND
0 deg Acoustic FSI (Hz) 33.51 39.69 41.87 42.23
One-way FSI (Hz) 34.41 40.87 42.79 42.91
Error/% 2.62 2.89 2.15 1.58
10 deg Acoustic FSI (Hz) 37.30 40.81 41.84 41.79
One-way FSI (Hz) 37.95 41.44 42.91 42.73
Error/% 1.71 1.52 2.26 2.19
20 deg Acoustic FSI (Hz) 40.03 42.07 41.94 41.53
One-way FSI (Hz) 40.52 43.04 42.73 42.38
Error/% 0.97 2.31 2.13 2.05
2382 M. Zhang, Q.-g. Chen

Fig. 8 Normalized added masses of different ND modes under different blade angles for a) Bending b) T (0,1) c) T (0,2) d) T (1,2).

Fig. 9 Normalized natural frequencies of different ND modes under different blade angles for a) Bending b) TS (0,1) c) TS (0,2) d) TS
(1,2).
Influence of internal blade-interactions on the added mass and added damping 2383

to by designers and operators to avoid resonances. The natural

frequency differences can be higher than 25% for different ND
modes in the Bending mode family with an added mass differ-
ence higher than 90% when the blade angle is low, but the dif-
ferences are limited for all the mode families when the blades
are totally open.
At the same time, from the natural frequencies of the single
blade model underwater in Fig. 5 and those of different ND
BD and TS (0, 1) modes in Fig. 6 when the blade angle is 0-
deg, one will find that the natural frequencies of 0 ND modes
are much lower than those of the single blade model shown in
Fig. 5, while all other ND modes are higher. For the single
blade model in water, the simulated blade vibrates against rigid
walls in the overlapped area. Why the added mass of 0 ND
modes of the BD and TS (0, 1) modes become more sensitive
to the blade angle?
For the 0 ND in the TS (0, 1) mode family, though all the
blades vibrate in-phase, in the overlapped area, each adjacent
two blades vibrate out-phase, which may be one of the reasons
to make its frequency lowest. While for the 3 ND of TS (0, 1)
mode family, though all the blades vibrate out-phase, in the
overlapped area, each adjacent two blades vibrate in-phase,
which may be one of the reasons to make its frequency highest.
For other ND modes in the TS (0, 1) mode family, some adja-
cent blades vibrate in-phase in the overlapped area, while
Fig. 10 Flow velocity vectors at the outside wall of the water
others vibrate out-phase, which makes their natural frequen-
domain.
cies lie between 0 ND and 3 ND. This seems to explain the
results well. However, for the 0 ND of the Bending mode fam-
ily, each adjacent two blades vibrate in-phase in the over-
lapped area, though the displacement at the leading-edge tip
is a little small. For the 3 ND of the Bending mode family,
each adjacent two blades vibrate out-phase in the overlapped
area, but its natural frequency is highest. Because the mode
shape changes from vacuum to water have been demonstrated
a little influence on the fluid–structure coupling vibration
behavior, there ought to be some other reasons accounting
for the lowest natural frequency of 0 ND Bending mode.
For most modes, the blade tip and trailing edge area usually
have higher modal displacement than other areas. Fig. 10 and
Fig. 11 show the flow velocity vectors and pressures at the out-
side wall (it is close to the blade tip) of the water domain
obtained from the Acoustic FSI for the 0 ND and 3 ND BD
and TS (0, 1) modes in water under the 0-deg blade angle,
respectively. The flow velocity along the blade tip for the 0
ND is much higher than that of the 3 ND Bending mode, while
the flow convection intensity at the blade overlapped area of 0
ND is less significant than that of 3ND. A higher flow velocity
means more water is activated by the blade vibration, thus a Fig. 11 Acoustic pressure at the outside wall of the water
higher added mass and lower natural frequency. domain.
The pressure field of 0 ND can be divided into two areas: a
deep negative pressure area above all the blades and a deep
positive area below all the blades. The formation of these by the global flow field disturbance from all the blades’ vibra-
two strong opposite pressure areas ought to be due to the same tion pattern. Though the local flow field disturbance in the
vibration phase of all the blades. For 3ND, the area above and overlapped area makes the flow velocity of 3ND higher than
below each blade also has opposite pressures. However, due to that of 0 ND due to its out-phase vibration in that area, the
the out-phase vibration of adjacent blades, the pressure above much lower frequency of 0ND indicates the global disturbance
or below each two adjacent blades are also opposite. Because on the flow field from all the blades’ vibration play a dominate
of this, the pressure difference above and below each blade role in the frequency differences of different ND modes in the
of 3 ND is much less significant than that of 0 ND. Therefore, BD mode family.
the much higher flow velocity along the blade tip of 0 ND The flow velocity at the middle part of blade tip for the
comes from the strong pressure difference above and below 0 ND TS (0, 1) mode seems lower than that of 3ND, but its
each blade, and this pressure intensity difference is determined flow velocity in the overlapped area seems higher than 3
2384
ND. Similarly, the pressure field of 0 ND is also divided into
two strong opposite pressure areas above and below all the
blades, and for 3ND, the area above and below each blade also
has opposite pressures, as well as the pressure above or below
each two adjacent two blades are opposite. However, for 0ND
in the overlapped area, due to the out-phase vibration, there is
zone formed with converse pressure difference above and
below each blade compared with other areas of blade tip,
which is not available for 3ND. The formation of this zone
on the one hand increase the flow convection intensity in the
overlapped area, and on the other hand it makes the band at
the middle part of blade tip with normal pressure difference
above and below the blade narrower, which makes the flow
convection intensity of 0 ND lower than 3ND at that band.
However, for the TS (0, 1) mode, the high mode displacement
area locates at the trailing edge, which is also in the overlapped
area, and together considering the frequency of 0ND is much
lower than that of 3ND, the local flow field disturbance in the
overlapped area due to the vibration phase differences of adja-
cent blades plays a dominant role for the frequency differences
of different ND modes in the TS (0,1) mode family, and if one
certain ND mode has more adjacent blades vibrating out-
phase, its added mass is higher.
This research assumes the absorption coefficient of the inlet
surface to be 1, which means the influence of the guide vanes is
not considered. However, for real Kaplan turbines, when the
blades are totally closed, the guide vanes may also close. If
the guide vanes are seen as rigid walls with the absorption coef-
ficient of the inlet surface 0, the frequencies of the 0ND and
3ND Bending modes change to 27.76 Hz and 40.76 Hz, respec-
tively, resulting the highest frequency about 50% higher than
the lowest frequency. This indicates a significant potential
influence of the guide vane status on the natural frequency
of 0ND Bending mode. The reason for this is that with the
decrease of the absorption coefficient of the inlet surface, the
pressure difference above and below the blades will be
enlarged.
4.3. Influence of internal blade-interactions on the added
damping effect
The added damping ratios of different ND BD modes under
different blade angles have been plotted in Fig. 12. For each
blade angle, the added damping ratios are normalized to the
lowest damping ratio of all the modes under each blade angle.
The damping ratio of the 0 ND mode always is highest under
each blade angle, which is 19% under the 20-deg blade angle
and 112% under the 0-deg blade angle higher than the lowest
damping ratio under each blade angle. The added damping dif-
ferences of other ND modes are not significant for all the blade
angles.
One thing that can be found that the mode with a higher
added damping ratio also has a higher added mass. The damp-
ing ratio is determined by viscous forces, and higher kinetic
energy means higher viscous forces [26]. Many studies have
shown that kinetic energy is determined by the added mass
[27,28]. Therefore, the highest added mass of 0 ND mode in
both still and flowing water determines its added damping also
is highest no matter in still or flowing water.
Due to the flow velocity change, the damping ratios for the
same ND mode under different blade angles are hard to be
M. Zhang, Q.-g. Chen
Fig. 12 Normalized added damping ratios of different ND
modes under different blade angles for the Bending mode family.
compared. However, due to the higher added mass under a
smaller blade angle, the added damping has a potential to
increase with the blade angle decrease if the flow velocity pass-
ing the blade profile can be kept the same.
5. Conclusions
The influence of the internal blade-interactions on the fluid–
structure coupling vibration behavior of Kaplan turbine run-
ners has been investigated numerically in this paper. The influ-
ence is mainly reflected in two aspects: the influence of the
blade angle and the influence of Nodal diameter on the added
mass and damping effect of the runner. The acoustic FSI tech-
nology based on FEM was carried out to study the added mass
effect first and to provide modal shapes and initial frequencies
for the following one-way FSI analysis based on FVM to cal-
culate the added mass and added damping in flowing water.
Natural frequencies of all the modes in the Bending mode fam-
ily predicted by the Acoustic FSI showed limited errors with
those predicted by the one-way FSI analysis, which validated
the simulations.
Some mode shape differences can be found between the sin-
gle blade in vacuum and all the blades in water. The influence
of these mode shape changes was investigated through the one-
ways FSI simulation, and the results show that the influence is
not significant. The influence of the Nodal Diameter and blade
angle on the natural frequencies and added massed decreases
with order increase of the mode families, and the influence is
most significant for the Bending mode family, which is most
prone to resonances under the excitation of RSI. For each
mode family, only one mode is usually more sensitive to the
blade angle, and the natural frequencies of all other ND modes
are not sensitive to the blade angle with limited differences
among them. The frequency difference between the sensitive
mode and all other insensitive modes increases with the
decrease of the blade angle. For the Bending mode family, 0
ND is most sensitive to the blade angle, and its natural fre-
quency can increase more than 20% with a decrease of the
added mass higher than 60% from totally close to totally open,
which should be paid attention to by the designers and opera-
tors to avoid resonance. The natural frequency differences can
Influence of internal blade-interactions on the added mass and added damping
be higher than 30% for different BD ND modes with an added
mass difference more than 100% when the blade angle is low,
but the differences are limited for all the mode families when
the blades are totally open. The damping ratio of the 0 ND
Bending mode always is highest under each blade angle, which
is 19% under the 20-deg blade angle and 112% under the 0-deg
blade angle higher than the lowest damping ratio in the bend-
ing mode family under each blade angle.
The influence of blade-interactions on the added mass is the
synthetic effect of many factors, like the global disturbance on
the flow field from all the blades’ vibration and the local distur-
bance from the vibration phases of adjacent blades in the over-
lapped area, etc. In this research, the influence of the guide
vanes is not considered. For real Kaplan turbines, when the
blades are totally closed, the guide vanes may also close. A sig-
nificant potential influence of the guide vane status has been
shown. However, whether the closed guide vanes can be seen
as rigid walls and how much impact does it have still need
experimental validations in the future.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to acknowledge the economic support
received from the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong
Province (No: ZR2018MEE036) and Project of Shandong Pro-
vince Higher Educational Young Innovative Talent Introduc-
tion and Cultivation Team [Performance enhancement of deep
coal mining equipment].
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