1

Vlad Hasmatuchi

Doctoral Assistant
e-mail: vlad.hasmatuchi@epfl.ch

Mohamed Farhat
Senior Scientist
e-mail: mohamed.farhat@epfl.ch

Steven Roth
Doctoral Assistant
e-mail: steven.roth@epfl.ch

Francisco Botero
Doctoral Student
e-mail: francisco.botero@epfl.ch

Francois Avellan
Professor
e-mail: francois.avellan@epfl.ch

Ecole Polytechnique Federale

de Lausanne (EPFL),
Laboratory for Hydraulic Machines,
Avenue de Cour 33bis,
CH-1007 Lausanne, Switzerland

Experimental Evidence of
Rotating Stall in a Pump-Turbine
at Off-Design Conditions in
Generating Mode
An experimental investigation of the rotating stall in reduced scale model of a low specific speed radial pump-turbine at runaway and turbine brake conditions in generating
mode is achieved. Measurements of wall pressure in the stator are performed along with
high-speed flow visualizations in the vaneless gap with the help of air bubbles injection.
When starting from the best efficiency point (BEP) and increasing the impeller speed, a
significant increase of the pressure fluctuations is observed mainly in the wicket gates
channels. The spectral analysis shows a rise of a low frequency component (about 70%
of the impeller rotational frequency) at runaway, which further increases as the zero
discharge condition is approached. Analysis of the instantaneous pressure peripheral distribution in the vaneless gap reveals one stall cell rotating with the impeller at sub-synchronous speed. High-speed movies reveal a quite uniform flow pattern in the guide
vanes channels at the normal operating range, whereas at runaway the flow is highly disturbed by the rotating stall passage. The situation is even more critical at very low positive discharge, where backflow and vortices in the guide vanes channels develop during
the stall cell passage. A specific image processing technique is applied to reconstruct the
rotating stall evolution in the entire guide vanes circumference for a low positive discharge operating point. The findings of this study suggest that one stall cell rotates with
the impeller at sub-synchronous velocity in the vaneless gap between the impeller and the
guide vanes. It is the result of rotating flow separations developed in several consecutive
impeller channels which lead to their blockage. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4004088]

Introduction

Major development of thermal power generators, either coal or

nuclear, within a power generation mix requires the construction
of pumped-storage plants for compensating the random nature of
consumption by storing energy in excess or delivering peak
energy to meet the demand. Therefore, reversible pump-turbines
provide an efficient way to stabilize the electricity grid by moving
water back and forth between upstream and downstream reservoirs. Such examples of pumped-storage power plants constructed
in the 1970s are the Raccoon Mountain, Tennessee, USA (Adkins
[1]), equipped with high-head pump-turbine impellers, or the
Grand Maison, France, equipped with multi-stage pump-turbine
impellers (Courier [2] and Henry [3]). Nowadays, in context of
liberalized electricity market, pumped-storage power plants as
Goldisthal, Germany (von Nessen-Lapp and Nowicki [4] and
Beyer [5]) or YangYang, South Korea (Houdeline et al. [6]) are
key components for the development of new renewable CO2-free
primary energies (e.g., wind or solar energy). Moreover, since
the electricity network frequency must be maintained stable, the
pump-turbines are subjected to a rapid switching between the
pumping and generating modes with extended operation under
off-design conditions. In particular, during the start-up procedure,
the machine is put in runaway operation (speed no-load condition)
prior to its synchronization. Depending on the specific speed of
the pump-turbine, the discharge-speed as well as torque-speed
characteristics at constant guide vanes opening can be S-shaped
featuring positive slope, see Fig. 1. The main issue with such a
1
Corresponding author.
Contributed by Fluids Engineering Division of ASME for publication in the JOURNAL OF FLUIDS ENGINEERING. Manuscript received December 10, 2010; final manuscript received April 20, 2011; published online June 7, 2011. Assoc. Editor: Edward
M. Bennett.

Journal of Fluids Engineering

characteristic curve is that at runaway, the machine may switch

back and forth from generating to reverse pumping modes. Moreover, it is well known that such unstable operation leads to a significant increase of structural vibrations and noise.
So far, the issue of pump-turbines operation under off-design
conditions in generating mode was poorly addressed in the literature. Nevertheless, early studies reported the technical challenges
of pump-turbines operation under unsteady off-design regimes
(Blanchon et al. [7], Casacci et al. [8] and Lacoste [9]). Moreover,
the unsteady phenomena, which may develop in a pump-turbine
during a sudden load rejection, were addressed by few authors:
Taulan [10], Pejovic et al. [11], Tanaka and Tsunoda [12], Oishi
and Yokoyama [13]. Martin, Refs. [14] and [15] proposed a stability analysis to predict the occurrence of large flow oscillations for
idealized machine. He argued that the unstable operation in case
of load-rejection with failed servomotor is mainly due to the presence of a positive slope on the torque characteristics at runaway.
Nicolet [16] stated that high head pump-turbines, which are commonly of low specific speeds, are more subjected to S-shaped
characteristic curves. Dorfler et al. [17] proposed an interesting
method to avoid unstable operation of pump-turbines during
model tests: The inlet valve is partially opened and by-passed
with a second valve to adjust the flow rate. The resulting artificial
head loss improves significantly the hydraulic stability. Kuwabara
et al. [18] developed an advanced control of the guide vane independent servomotors, which was provided with an anti-S-characteristics control to be used upon load rejection. Klemm [19]
reported the implementation of the Misaligned Guide Vanes
(MGV) concept in the COO II pumped-storage power plant in
Belgium to achieve an improvement of the machine stability for
no-load and extreme part-load conditions. It consists in operating
several guide vanes independently from the rest of the guide vane
mechanism in order to stabilize the machine. Recently, Shao [20]

C 2011 by ASME
Copyright V

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Fig. 1 S-shaped characteristic curve of a pump-turbine in

generating mode

proposed and validated empirical formulae of the pump-turbine

internal characteristics with MGVs, based on the internal characteristic theory of turbomachinery and the original model characteristic curves without MGVs.
In the present paper, an experimental investigation is carried
out in reduced scale model of a pump-turbine. Measurements of
pressure fluctuation in the wicket gates channels synchronized
with high-speed flow visualization are performed for a wide range
of machine operation. The analysis is focused on the onset and development of flow unsteadiness at runaway and low flow rate
conditions.

Experimental Setup

A reduced scale model of a low specific speed radial pump-turbine featuring 9 impeller blades and 20 guide and stay vanes, Fig. 2,
is installed in the EPFL PF3 test rig. Two 400 kW centrifugal
pumps in series deliver 1.4 m3 s1 under a maximum head of
100 m. Off-design operating conditions, involving runaway and
turbine brake, are investigated. Starting from nominal operation at
fixed guide vanes openings (5 and 10 ) and 20 m head, the rotation speed is gradually increased until occurrence of runaway condition, i.e., zero torque value. At this point, the operation becomes
unstable and the machine may switch back and forth from generating to reverse pumping modes. A specific procedure, commonly
used in model testing of pump-turbines, is adopted to stabilize the
machine operation: once the runaway is reached, a butterfly valve,
located in the main pipe upstream to the model, is closed. A bypass over the specified valve, equipped with a second Iris diaphragm control valve, is then used for a fine adjustment of the test
head value, providing simultaneously an additional hydraulic resistance. This procedure improves significantly the stability of the
machine operation and allows exploring the entire S-curve.
Wall pressure measurements are performed using piezoresistive
pressure sensors flush mounted in the spiral casing, stay vanes and
guide vanes channels as well as in the draft tube. Pressure signals
are simultaneously recorded using VXI HP1432A digitizers with

Fig. 2

HYDRODYNA reduced scale model

051104-2 / Vol. 133, MAY 2011

Fig. 3 Experimental setup for pressure measurements and

high-speed flow visualization

16 bits A/D resolution, 51200 Hz sampling frequency and a memory of 1 M-samples/channel, providing maximum 20 s record
length. The entire experimental setup is illustrated in Fig. 3. As
shown in Fig. 4, the sensors locations are selected to cover the stator channels from spiral casing up to rotor-stator interface in both
radial and circumferential directions. Moreover, high-speed flow
visualizations are performed in the vaneless gap between the
impeller and the wicket gates. To this end, air bubbles are injected
through a 1 mm nozzle located on the upper wall of a stator channel. Bubbles entrainment visualizations are performed from the
bottom through a transparent Plexiglas window and recorded at
1000 fps with the help of a Photron SA1 digital camera.

Results

3.1 Pressure Fluctuations. According to IEC 60193 standards [21], the speed, discharge and torque factors are defined by
Eqs. (1)(3). The impeller outlet diameter D is 0.250 m, while E,
the test specific energy value, is maintained at 200 J kg1 for all
the operating points.

Fig. 4

Pressure sensors location in the model

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Discharge factor:
QED

Q
p
E

(2)

Tm
qD3 E

(3)

D2

Torque factor:
TED

Fig. 5 Resulting S-shaped curves for the discharge and torque factors in generating mode

Speed factor:
nD
nED p
E

(1)

The turbine characteristics at 5 and 10 guide vanes opening in

(nED, QED) and (nED, TED) coordinates systems are presented in
Fig. 5. At 10 guide vanes opening, the turbine characteristic
exhibits a positive slope after the runaway speed (see Fig. 5, operating point OP. #3). When a pump-turbine prototype is brought in
such a situation, the operation suddenly switches to reverse pumping mode. The discharge as well as the torque is reversed with a
substantial increase of structural vibrations driven by flow instabilities. In our case, the use of the previously described stabilizing
procedure prevents such unstable operation and allows exploring
the positive slope part of the characteristic curve. Once in reverse
pumping quadrant, an increase of the rotation speed (OP. #6) leads
to strong cavitation occurrence on the blades at the impeller outlet, associated with significant increase of structural vibrations
and noise. Moreover, this unstable operation is even magnified by
the test rig control system, which fails in correcting the parameters
fluctuation in real time.
A global view of the flow unsteadiness at 5 and 10 guide
vanes opening is provided by superposing on the (nED, QED) characteristic curves, the standard deviation of the pressure fluctuations, defined by Eq. (4), in the spiral casing and guide vanes (see
Fig. 6). The diameter of circles is proportional to the standard
deviation of pressure scaled by qE. The same scale is adopted for
all graphs to allow straightforward comparison between different
operating points and different locations. It can be easily observed
that the pressure fluctuations in the guide vanes channels, close to
rotor/stator interface, are by far more important than in the spiral
casing. Moreover, for any given location, the pressure fluctuations
are increased for low rotation speed, around the S-shape and in
reverse pumping mode. At these conditions, a substantial increase
of the structural vibrations is observed. It should be noticed that in
the particular case of guide vanes location, the maximum pressure
fluctuation is at least 25 times larger than in nominal conditions
and about 15% of the specific energy. The present analysis suggests that the source of flow unsteadiness at off-design conditions
is likely located in the impeller or in the vaneless gap between the
impeller and the guide vanes.
v
u N
u1 X
1
;
t
(4)
pi  p2
c~p
qE N i1
Further analysis is carried out for six operating conditions (OP. #1
to OP. #6) at 10 guide vanes opening, as marked on Fig. 5 and
Fig. 7. They are distributed as follows: normal operating range
region (OP. #1), runaway speed (OP. #3), low positive discharge
(OP. #4) and high impeller speed with negative discharge (OP.

Fig. 6

Pressure fluctuations standard deviation (STD)

Journal of Fluids Engineering

Fig. 7

Investigated operating points

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Fig. 8 Pressure fluctuations amplitude spectra in the spiral

casing, sensor location Sc1

Fig. 9 Pressure fluctuations amplitude spectra in the guide

vanes channel, sensor location GV1

#6). Two other intermediate points (OP. #2 and OP. #5) are
selected in the transition regions between those already presented.
The pressure coefficient fluctuation is computed in accordance
with Eq. (5). Averaged spectra of pressure fluctuations in the spiral casing (sensor Sc1) and in the guide vanes (sensor Gv1) are presented in Fig. 8 and Fig. 9 for previously selected operating
points. The plots scales are differently chosen in order to facilitate
the visualization. The pressure fluctuation in the guide vanes
channels is dominated by the blade passing frequency and its first
harmonic with lower amplitude (f 9fn and f 18fn), excepting
the low discharge operating point. The spectral analysis shows
also a low frequency component (70% of the impeller rotational
frequency) arising at runaway (OP. #3), which further increases in
amplitude as the low positive discharge condition (OP. #4) is
approached. At this point, it even represents the dominant frequency and is found to modulate the blade passing frequency. In
the spiral casing (Fig. 8), as reported by Tanaka [22], the blade
passing frequency has lower amplitude than its first harmonic.
The low frequency component is visible in this region as well and
becomes dominant in turbine brake mode (OP. #3 and OP. #4).
Actually, this low frequency represents the signature of the flow
unsteadiness at off-design operating conditions. Moreover, when
starting from the nominal conditions and increasing the impeller
speed, a significant increase of the pressure fluctuations amplitude
is observed in the channels between guide vanes as well as in the
spiral casing. At best efficiency point (OP. #1) the amplitude of

fluctuations is at least 10 times smaller than any of operating

points from OP. #2 to OP. #6. In the spiral casing, the pressure
fluctuations amplitude is significantly lower (almost 10 times)
than in the guide vanes region, except for the low discharge condition (OP. #4). These observations confirm that the source of flow
unsteadiness is located either in the impeller or in the vaneless
gap between the impeller and the distributor.
Pressure coefficient fluctuation:

051104-4 / Vol. 133, MAY 2011

c~p

p  p
qE

(5)

Time history over 10 impeller revolutions corresponding to pressure fluctuations in the vaneless gap between the impeller and the
guide vanes (sensor Rs3) are presented in Fig. 10 in comparison
between normal operating range (OP. #1), runaway (OP. #3) as
well as low discharge condition (OP. #4). As already observed in
the spectra (Fig. 9), the fluctuations amplitude at the normal operating condition is insignificant compared to the low discharge condition. Surprisingly, the pressure fluctuations at this very unstable
operating point are not random but exhibit a remarkable periodicity. It can also be observed the way the rotor-stator interaction frequency is carried by the related low frequency (0.7fn). An instantaneous image of the time-pressure fluctuations on the entire
vaneless gap circumference is given in Fig. 11, with the help of a
time-space-amplitude representation. Accordingly, one high
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Fig. 10 Time history of the pressure fluctuation in the vaneless

gap for 3 operating conditions

pressure instability source rotating with the impeller at sub-synchronous frequency can be detected. Moreover, the high pressure
region covers approximately 50% of the circumference. These
findings are consistent with those of Vesely et al. [23] who investigated a medium head pump-turbine model and found that a rotating stall with a frequency of propagation about 60% of the impeller speed arises at turbine brake and reverse pumping conditions
having only one stall cell.

Fig. 12 Instantaneous air bubbles flow visualizations in one

guide vanes channel

3.2 Flow Visualization. High-speed flow visualizations are

made with the help of air bubbles injection in the vaneless gap
between the impeller and the guide vanes. A needle valve is
used to control the amount of injected air. The injection pressure is maintained at a value slightly above the mean pressure
at the injection location. We assume that air bubbles fairly follow the streamlines with almost no effect on the flow itself.
Fig. 12 illustrates arbitrary instantaneous captures of the flow
pattern in the guide vanes region for the normal operating range
(OP. #1), runaway (OP. #3) and low discharge (OP. #4) conditions. To assess the flow trajectory in the guide vanes channel,
we have summed the images captured during 3 impeller revolutions at 1000 fps. The result is given in Fig. 13 for the same
operating points OP. #1, #3 and #4. So, at BEP (OP #1), the
trajectory of air bubbles is straight inside the guide vanes channel, then becomes slightly unstable in the wake of the neighboring guide vane. At runaway (OP. #3), the flow becomes more
disturbed, as evidenced by the scatter of air bubbles. At low

discharge (OP. #4) and during the passage of the rotating stall,
part of injected air is found upstream to the injection site, suggesting the occurrence of backflow.
According to Fig. 11, at low discharge operating condition
(OP. #4) one stall cell travels with the impeller at a constant sub-

Fig. 11 Time history of the pressure fluctuation in the whole

vaneless gap at low discharge condition (OP. #4)

Fig. 13 Superposition of air bubbles visualizations in one

guide vanes channel during 3 impeller revolutions

Journal of Fluids Engineering

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Fig. 14 Instantaneous synthetic flow visualization of the rotating stall evolution in the full
guide vanes ring and vaneless gap

synchronous speed and induces the same pressure fluctuation amplitude in the whole vaneless ring. Therefore, a time distribution
of the phenomenon can be represented as a space distribution by
placing images for one rotating stall period with appropriate phase
shift to obtain a synthetic instantaneous view of the flow state in
the entire guide vanes circumference. A specific image processing
was applied on the high-speed movie at low discharge operating
point (OP. #4) in a previous work (Hasmatuchi et al. [24]).
Briefly, the image processing procedure may be described as follows: Firstly, the high-speed visualization movie for OP. #4 is
split in pictures frame-by-frame. Then, a periodic mask (for an
angle of 18 , in accordance with the number of guide vanes)
reported to the machine rotation axis is created in order to extract
from figure only one guide vane and the corresponding adjacent
channel comprising the air injection aperture. The procedure is
repeated for each frame. Finally, 20 processed images are
extracted from one rotating stall period and placed on the final
global figure to cover the whole guide vanes ring. Repeating the
procedure for each movie time step, a high-speed synthetic flow
visualization of the rotating stall evolution in the entire guide
vanes circumference is provided. The result for one time step is
illustrated in Fig. 14. Moreover, the impeller is placed in the center of the figure at its real position. A contour plot of the low-pass
filtered pressure fluctuation (the rotor-stator interaction fluctuations are filtered) for the sensor RS3 placed in the vaneless gap
downstream the air injection aperture, is represented between the
guide vanes and the impeller for one rotating stall period. The
rotor-stator interaction pressure component cannot be appropriately spatially represented since its frequency is not a multiple of
the rotating stall frequency. The pressure contour is in accordance
with the flow visualization for each angular position. The injected
air bubbles are visible only on a half of the circumference when
the air pressure exceeds the pressure inside the flow. Therefore, in
051104-6 / Vol. 133, MAY 2011

accordance with the pressure fluctuation contour as well, no bubbles are visible in the channels between the guide vanes 6 to 18.
Channels between the guide vanes 18 to 14 show the state of the
flow at the end of the stall passage. Vortices and backflow dominate the flow pattern. Once the rotating stall passed (channels
between guide vanes 14 to 6), the flow returns step by step to a
uniform pattern. In the channels between the guide vanes 9 to 6,
the flow is even similar with the one in the normal operating range
(see Fig. 12, OP. #1). The related visualization technique is interesting because it allows creating a global view of the flow pattern
in the entire guide vanes region without creating a transparent
wall on the whole circumference, which is not realistic for
obvious mechanical resistance reasons. Moreover, the draft tube
presence would restrain the visual field. The shortcoming given
by the air bubbles absence when the pressure is too high could be
eliminated by correcting the injected air pressure level at each
moment accordingly with the pressure in the flow. The challenge
is given by the need of injecting the minimum volume of gas for
an optimum visibility. The injection procedure must be performed
quickly, because working at almost no-discharge condition, the
gas introduced in the flow, remains inside the model.
3.3 Discussion. On one hand, flow separation occurs at the
inlet of the impeller channels at runaway operating point. Moreover, for the operating points in the S-region the flow separation
degenerates in blockage. On the other hand, due to the large vaneless gap between the impeller and the guide vanes at 10 opening,
backflow cells are also developed with an alternate switch
between generating and pumping modes of the impeller channels.
Moreover, this explanation is in agreement with the results of
flow visualization in the impeller of a small model Francis type
pump-turbine obtained by Senoo and Yamaguchi [25] as well as
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superposition of the rotor-stator interaction over this situation

renders a very complex flow pattern. Brennen [28] provides an explanation about the rotating stall onset and development in a cascade of stator or rotor blades. Accordingly, three consecutive
impeller blades operating at large incidence angle are considered.
A perturbation of the incoming flow induces a stall in one of the
channels. Furthermore, the blockage induces an increase of
the incidence angle for the follower blade as well as a decrease of
the incidence angle for the forerunner blade. Consequently, the
stall moves on a direction away from the incoming flow. Indeed,
the stall cell can occur on several consecutive channels. In the
case of a rotor, the stall rotates in the same direction with the
impeller, but with 5070% of its angular velocity.
Fig. 15 Theoretical mean velocity triangles at the impeller inlet
for BEP and off-design operating points

Hayami et al. [26]. Furthermore, Staubli et al. [27] also concluded

that local vortices formed at the inlet of the impeller channels represent the source of the unsteady inflow and outflow from the
impeller in the vaneless gap between the impeller and the guide
vanes.
From a theoretical point of view, the mean velocity triangles at
the impeller inlet in generating mode can be represented as in
Fig. 15. The b angle is given by the relative flow velocity at the
impeller inlet, whereas the a angle is given by the absolute velocity of the flow at the guide vanes outlet. At the best efficiency
points (BEP) for 18 and, respectively, 10 (OP. #1) guide vanes
opening angles, the mean velocity triangles are similar, while an
enormous difference is observed between the mean velocity triangles for normal operating range (OP. #1) and runaway (OP. #3)
conditions. Furthermore, at low discharge condition (OP. #4) the
relative flow velocity angle diminishes even more. Figure 16 illustrates a schematic representation of the flow pattern at the impeller
inlet under off-design operating conditions. In agreement with the
mean velocity triangle at normal operating range operation, a uniform flow at the impeller inlet is sketched. At runaway, flow separation occurs since the relative flow velocity angle, b, is strongly
diminished. Recirculation regions appear on the suction sides of
the blades, leading to channels blockages. The difference between
runaway and low discharge condition is given by the accentuation
of the flow separation phenomenon at the impeller inlet. The

Conclusions

The experimental evidence of rotating stall in a reduced model

centrifugal pump-turbine at off-design operating conditions has
been presented. The experiment, carried out in the EPFL PF3 test
rig, involves wall pressure measurements in the stator along with
high-speed flow visualizations in the vaneless gap between the
impeller and the guide vanes with the help of air bubbles injection. The focus is put on the off-design conditions in generating
mode involving runaway and turbine brake. Starting from the best
efficiency point, the impeller speed is gradually increased until
the flow is totally reversed. The main conclusions may be summarized as follows.

At the best efficiency point, the pressure fluctuation is very

low and mainly dominated by the blade passing frequency
and the first harmonic.
As the impeller enters the S-shape domain, a substantial
increase of the pressure fluctuation is observed everywhere in
the stator. This increase is particularly pronounced in the
guide vanes, while it is minimal in the draft tube.
At runaway, the spectral analysis shows a rise of a low frequency component at about 70% of the impeller rotational
frequency, which further increases in amplitude as the zero
discharge condition is approached. The time-pressure distribution in the vaneless gap between the impeller and guide
vanes reveals one stall cell rotating with the impeller at subsynchronous speed.
High-speed visualization shows a quite uniform flow pattern
in the guide vanes channels at the normal operating range,
whereas at runaway the flow is disturbed by the rotating stall
passage. The situation is even more critical at very low positive discharge, where backflow and vortices in the guide
vanes channels accompany the stall passage.
A specific image processing technique is applied to create a
high-speed visualization of the rotating stall evolution in the
entire guide vanes circumference for a low positive discharge
operating point.

To sum up, the flow in a pump-turbine operating under offdesign conditions in generating mode, in the S-region, is dominated by one stall cell rotating with the impeller at sub-synchronous speed in the vaneless gap between the impeller and the guide
vanes. It is the result of rotating flow separations developed in
several consecutive impeller channels which lead to their blockage. The rotating instability is generating hydraulic unbalance and
strong structural vibrations.

Acknowledgment

Fig. 16 Schematic representation of the impeller inlet flow pattern at BEP and off-design operation

Journal of Fluids Engineering

The present investigation was carried out in the frame work of

HYDRODYNA II research project (Eureka N 4150), in a partnership with ALSTOM Hydro, ANDRITZ Hydro, VOITH Hydro and
UPC-CDIF. The authors would like to thank the Swiss Federal
Commission for the Technology and Innovation (CTI), Swisselectric Research and Swiss Competence Center of Energy and
MAY 2011, Vol. 133 / 051104-7

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Mobility (CCEM) for their financial support as well the HYDRODYNA II partners for their involvement and support.

Nomenclature
a
ao
b
q
c~p
c~;p
f
fn
n
nED
p
p
D
E
N
Q
QED
TED
Tm

absolute flow velocity angle

guide vanes opening angle
relative flow velocity angle
water density, kg m3
pressure coefficient fluctuation
pressure fluctuation standard deviation
frequency, Hz
impeller frequency, Hz
impeller speed, rot s1
speed factor
wall pressure, Pa
time average wall pressure, Pa
impeller outlet diameter, m
specific energy, J kg1
samples number
discharge, m3 s1
discharge factor
torque factor
impeller torque, N m

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