On the Water Jet Quality at Part-Load Operation of Pelton turbines

Abstract

Pelton turbines with multiple nozzles are characterised by their excellent performance over a wide operating range of mass flow rates. Thus, Pelton turbine manifolds must also be designed to deliver good flow quality to the nozzles at part-load operating conditions to accomplish the expectations. A reduced number of nozzles are opened at low mass flow rate operating conditions, where the choice of the open nozzles depends on the water jet quality generated at the individual nozzles. We investigate the flow phenomena occurring in the manifold with the operation of a reduced nozzle number employing numerical simulations to analyse beneficial nozzle opening selections. The turbulent two-phase flow is predicted by the Volume-Of-Fluid (VOF) approach and the k–ω SST turbulence closure model. Different nozzle operating scenarios are simulated, and the implications on the water jet quality, i.e. deviation and shape deformation, are reported. The results show that the free water jet quality criteria can change drastically at individual nozzle operating conditions because of the velocity changes at the branch line junctions.