DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
HAWASSA UNIVERSITY

Turbo Machinery - MEng 3201

Chapter 2 – Hydraulic Turbine

By: Million M.
Mr. Million M., Thermal Engineer,
1
Hawassa University
 CHAPTER TWO
Hydraulic Turbine
Introduction:
•The device which converts hydraulic energy into
mechanical energy or vice versa is known as
Hydraulic Machines.
•The hydraulic machines which convert hydraulic
energy into mechanical energy are known as
Turbines and that convert mechanical energy into
hydraulic energy is known as Pumps (Chapter 3).

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 The hydraulic turbine has a long period of development, its
oldest and simplest form being the waterwheel, first used in
ancient Greece and subsequently adopted throughout
medieval Europe for the grinding of grain, etc.
 It was a French engineer, Benoit Fourneyron, who developed
the first commercially successful hydraulic turbine (circa
1830).
 Later Fourneyron built turbines for industrial purposes that
achieved a speed of 2300 rev/min, developing about 50 kW
at an efficiency of over 80 per cent.
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 Turbine types:

Impulse turbine
– Converts all the available hydraulic energy in to kinetic energy

– The pressure distribution along the turbine runner is almost

atmospheric

Reaction turbine:

The turbine runner is entirely submerged and both the velocity and
pressure head are varying while water flows through the runner.

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 Turbines

Pelton Turbine : It is an impulse turbine and

used for low flow and high head.

Francis Turbine : It is a reaction turbine and used

for low flow and medium head plant.

Kaplan Turbine : It is a reaction turbine and used

for low head and large flow plants.

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07/27/22

HYDRO POWER SYSTEM

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 Generally, Classification of Hydraulic Turbines

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 Example: Classification based on head
and discharge (Cont…)
• Head:
– Low head, 1.5-15m, reaction-propeller
– Medium head, 16-70m, reaction-Kaplan
– High head, 71-500m, reaction- Francis
– Very high head, >500m, Impulse-pelton
• Discharge:
– Low discharge, Impulse- pelton
– Intermediate discharge, Reaction-Francis
– High discharge, Reaction-kaplan

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 Dimensionless groups in hydraulic turbines

Q Fluid velocity
CQ   CQ = flow coefficient
ND 3 Blade velocity
CH = head coefficient
CP = power coefficient
gH
CH  2 2 Q = discharge
N D
energy per unit volume of the fluid N = rotational speed

rotor or impeller dynamic pressure (K.E. per unit volume) D = diameter
g = gravity
P H = head
CP 
 N 3 D5 P = power
 = density

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Dimensionless groups in hydraulic turbines
(cont…)

C1P 2
N sp  5 4
CH Nsp = Specific speed

NP1 2 CH = head coefficient

 54 CP = power coefficient
 1 2  gH 
N = rotational speed
P = power
 = density
g = gravity
NP1 2 H = head
N
N sp 
H5 4

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Hydropower system design
Turbines: Power conversion

P  Q  gh P  T

T  Fr

F  M
 m v
  Qv
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Heads and Efficiencies of Hydraulic Turbines :

 Hydraulic Heads :

Gross head: It is the difference between the head

race and tail race level when there is no flow. As
such it is termed as static head and is denoted as Hs
or Hg .
Effective head: It is the head available at the inlet of
the turbine. It is obtained by considering all head
losses in penstock. If hf is the total loss, then the
effective head above the turbine is H = Hg – hf
 Efficiencies:

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Cont…

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2.1 Impulse Turbine
2.1.1 Pelton
• The edge that divides each bucket in two
symmetrical parts cuts the water spurt, sectioning
it in two laminae of fluid, theoretically of identical
volume. This disposition allows resisting mutually
the axial pushes that are originated in the bun.
• Jets of water are directed through a nozzle onto
Pelton wheel Cups on the wheel transfer kinetic
energy from water to wheel.

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Hydropower system design
Turbines: Pelton wheel (1889)

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 Hydropower system design
Turbines: Pelton wheel
 For maximum change in momentum of the fluid and
hence for the maximum driving force on the wheel, the
deflection of the water jet should be 180 deg.
 In practice, however, the
deflection is limited to
about so that the water
leaving a bucket may not
hit the back of the
following bucket.
Therefore, the camber
angle of the buckets is
made as 165 deg.
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2.1 Pelton Turbine (Cont…)

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2.1 Pelton Turbine (Cont…)

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2.1 Pelton Turbine (Cont…)

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Pelton Turbine (Conti…)
 Where θ is the angle through which the jet
is deflected by the bucket.β2 is the
runner tip angle β2 = 180 - θ.
 Fig. above shows the inlet and outlet
velocity. Since the angle of entrance of jet
is zero, the inlet velocity triangle
collapses to a straight line.
 The tangential component of absolute
velocity at inlet Vu1 = V1 and the relative
velocity at the inlet is V r1= V1 - U.
since,
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2.1 Pelton Turbine (Cont…)

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Pelton Turbine (Conti…)

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Pelton Turbine (Conti…)

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 Pelton Turbine (Conti…)

Problem 1a

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 The Cross-flow impulse turbine
• An impulse turbine
(Stapenhorst, 1978), also called First strike
the Banki or Michell turbine.
• The name "cross-flow" comes
from the fact that the water
crosses through the runner vanes
twice in producing the rotation.
• The cross-flow principle was
developed by Michell, an
Austrian engineer, in 1903.
• Professor Banki, a Hungarian
engineer, developed the machine
further.

Second strike
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 Advantage of Divided Cells of a
cross-flow turbine

• During low flow 1/3 of runner width operates

• During medium flow 2/3 of runner width
operates
• During high flow 3/3 or whole of runner width
operates
• The turbine can be operated efficiently
starting from 20% part-gate

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Pelton efficiency with different conditions

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 Limitation of a Pelton Turbine:

• The Pelton wheel is efficient and reliable when

operating under large heads.
• To generate a given output power under a smaller
head, the rate of flow through the turbine has to be
higher which requires an increase in the jet
diameter. The number of jets are usually limited to
4 or 6 per wheel.
• The increases in jet diameter in turn increases the
wheel diameter.
• Therefore the machine becomes unduly large, bulky
and slow-running. In practice, turbines of the
reaction type are more suitable for lower heads

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2.2 Reaction Turbines
• Reaction Turbine: The principal feature of a reaction
turbine that distinguishes it from an impulse turbine is
that only a part of the total head available at the inlet to
the turbine is converted to velocity head, before the
runner is reached.

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 2.2 Reaction Turbines (Cont…)
2.2.1 Francis The Francis Turbine: Developed by
James B. Francis
 The Francis turbine is
one of the reaction
turbines
 The radial flow causes
the turn of the runner
 Francis turbines may be
designed for a wide
range of heads and flows

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 2.2 Reaction Turbines (cont…)
A reaction turbine comprises
mainly the four components:
(i) sprical casing,
(ii) guide or stay vanes,
(iii) runner blades,
(iv) draft-tube

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Francis cont…
Sprical casing:
Most of these machines have vertical shafts although some
smaller machines of this type have horizontal shaft.
The fluid enters from the penstock (pipeline leading to the
turbine from the reservoir at high altitude) to a spiral casing
which completely surrounds the runner. This casing is known
as scroll casing or volute.

Guide or Stay vane:

The basic purpose of the guide vanes or stay vanes is to convert
a part of pressure energy of the fluid at its entrance to the kinetic
energy and then to direct the fluid on to the runner blades at the
angle appropriate to the design.
Moreover, the guide vanes are pivoted and can be turned by a
suitable governing mechanism to regulate the flow while the load
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changes. The guide vanes are also known as wicket gates. 38
 Runner of the Francis Turbine
 The main purpose of the components is to lead the
water to the runner with minimum loss of energy.
 The runner of turbine is consists of series of curved
blades (16 to 24) evenly arranged around the
circumference in the space between the two plate.
 The vanes are so shaped that water enters the runner
radially at outer periphery and leaves it axially at its
center.
 The change in direction of flow from radial to axial
when passes over the runner causes the appreciable
change in circumferential force which in turn
responsible to develop power.

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 Draft tube:

 The draft tube is a conduit which connects the runner

exit to the tail race where the water is being finally
discharged from the turbine.
 The primary function of the draft tube is to reduce
the velocity of the discharged water to
minimize the loss of kinetic energy at the
outlet.
 This permits the turbine to be set above the tail
water without any appreciable drop of available
head.
 A clear understanding of the function of the draft
tube in any reaction turbine, in fact, is very important
for the purpose of its design.
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 Types of draft tubes (Francis cont…)

a) Straight divergent conical tube

b) Simple elbow tube
c) Moody spreading tube (or Hydracone)
d) Elbow tube having circular cross section at
inlet and rectangular cross section at outlet.

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 Francis cont…
• The total head H1 at the entrance to the turbine can
be found out by applying the Bernoulli's equation
between the free surface of the reservoir and the inlet to
the turbine as

where hf is the head lost

due to friction in the
pipeline connecting the
reservoir and the turbine
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 Francis cont…
• Net head producing work

 The pressures are defined in terms of their values above

the atmospheric pressure. Section 2 and 3 in the Figure
represent the exits from the runner and the draft tube
respectively.
 If the losses in the draft tube are neglected, then the total
head at 2 becomes equal to that at 3. Therefore, the net
head across the machine is either or . Applying
the Bernoull's equation between 2 and 3 in consideration
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flow, without losses, through the draft tube, we can 43
 Francis cont…

• Since  , both the terms in the bracket are positive and

hence   is always negative, which implies that the static
pressure at the outlet of the runner is always below the
atmospheric pressure.

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Francis cont…

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Francis cont…

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Francis cont…

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Francis cont…

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Francis cont…

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Francis cont…

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Francis cont…

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Francis cont…

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Francis cont…

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Francis cont…
7:

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Francis cont…
8:

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Francis cont

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Francis cont

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Francis cont

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 2.3 Kaplan
 The Kaplan turbine is an axial flow reaction turbine in
which the flow is parallel to the axis of the shaft.
 This is mainly used for large quantity of water and for
very low heads (4-70 m) for which the specific speed is
high. The runner of the Kaplan turbine looks like a
propeller of a ship. Therefore sometimes it is also called
as propeller turbine.
 At the exit of the Kaplan turbine the draft tube is
connected to discharge water to the tail race.

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2.3 Kaplan (Cont…)
Hydropower system design
Turbines: Kaplan (1913)

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2.3 Kaplan (Cont…)

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2.3 Kaplan (Cont…)

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2.3 Kaplan (Cont…)

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 2.4 Cavitation
• A reduced pressure under the blades (or buckets)
of a turbine runner may lead to cavitation –
phenomenon detrimental to the turbine.
• The term cavitation basically refers to the ability
of cold water to boil under low pressure.
• Under a normal absolute barometric pressure of 1
bar water starts to boil at 100 oC. However, when
the pressure drops to 0.033 bar (which is called
the critical pressure Pcr) it may begin to bubble at
25 oC, that is, at normal river water temperature.

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 Consequence of Cavitation
• When the pressure under a runner approaches Pcr, the
water in the stream starts boiling, giving rise to cavities
(known as cavitation bubbles) filled with water vapor.
• The boundary between the low pressure zone immediately
under the blades (or buckets) and the high pressure zone in
the stream above the runner follows an extremely unstable
pattern.
• The cavitation bubbles find themselves from time to time in
the high pressure zone. As a result, the vapor instantly
condenses and a cavitation bubble collapses.
• As this takes place, an enormous pressure develops at the
bubble centre, which spreads quickly in an explosion-like
manner. A series of such micro-explosions following one
another at very short intervals causes a good deal of noise
and vibration in the turbine and may provoke the runner
blades
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Hydropower system design
Turbines: Cavitation

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Hydropower system design
Turbines: Cavitation: Thoma number

pA p
 v  hs
g g

H
 = Thoma number
pa = atmospheric pressure
pv = vapour pressure
hs = elevation above
tailwater
H = total head
 = density
g = gravity
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Turbine selection criteria
• Generally the selection shall be based on:
– Available head
– Available discharge
– Power demand fluctuation
– Cost
• For small head, the discharge requirement is
high, requiring bigger turbines; thus costly.
(Why?)

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 Turbine selection criteria(ctd.)
 The choice of a suitable hydraulic prime-mover
depends upon various considerations for the given
head and discharge at a particular site of the power
plant.
 The type of the turbine can be determined if the
head available, power to be developed and speed at
which it has to run are known to the engineer
beforehand.
 The following factors have the bearing on the
selection of the right type of hydraulic turbine:
 Rotational Speed;
 Specific Speed;
 Maximum Efficiency;
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 Rotational speed
• In all modern hydraulic power plants, the turbines are
directly coupled to the generator to reduce the
transmission losses.
• This arrangement of coupling narrows down the range
of the speed to be used for the prime-mover. The
generator generates the power at constant voltage and
frequency and, therefore, the generator has to operate
at its synchronous speed.
• The synchronous speed of a generator is given by
– N=60*f/p Where: N speed rpm; f- frequency of the generator
(usually 50hz or 60 hz), p- number of pair of poles of the
generator
• f and p are constants thus N is constant.
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 Specific Speed
Runner Specific Speed Ns (rpm)
Slow Medium Fast
Pelton 4-15 16-30 31-70
Francis 60-130 151-250 251-400
Kaplan 300-400 451-700 701-1100
N P
N s  5/ 4 Specific speed:
speed is a
h
speed at which a
1750
N s  1/ 2 for 18  h  300m turbine is running to
h produce 1kw power
1475 through a head of 1m.
N s  1/ 3 for h  18m
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 Francis

Pelton

Kaplan

Rotors of hydraulic turbines with different specific speeds Ω.

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 Correspondence between specific speed Ω
and type of hydraulic turbine (Pelton,
Francis, Kaplan)

 N Q 
 3 4
 ( gH )  rated

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 Maximum and minimum turbine flow rates to be
decided based on turbine size and efficiency curve.
1.0
Pelton

0.8
Cross-
flow
Efficiency
0.6
t Kaplan
Francis Propeller
0.4

0.2

0.0
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
Flow rate as proportion of design flow rate

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