S. Pudasaini et al.: Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis of Pelton runner of Khimti Hydro-power Project of.......

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis of Pelton

runner of Khimti Hydro-power Project of Nepal
Sanam Pudasaini*1, Hari Prasad Neopane1, Amod Panthee1, Anuj Pathak1and Bhoj Bahadur Chaudhary1
1

Turbine Testing Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, Kathmandu

University, Dhulikhel, Nepal

Abstract - Nepal, with its diverse topological features and rich

water resources, boasts a huge hydro energy potential with ability
to generate 42000 MW of electricity. Higher mountains providing
higher heads and seasonal variation in flow rates appropriates
thechoice of Pelton turbines for hydro power projects in the
country. The flat efficiency curve maintained by Pelton turbine on
wide operating ranges counters for the seasonal variations seen in
the rivers of Nepal. However, the design and manufacturing cost of
actual Pelton prototype is very high. Redesigning and optimization
process becomes even more costly and time consuming. However,
the introduction of numerical tools has changed the design
engineers procedures in the process of new Pelton turbines design.

+ =
(1)

= +
(2)

+ +
(3)

The research was carried out in order to perform CFD

analysis of Pelton runner of Khimti Hydropower. The runner was
scaled down by meeting IEC 60193 standard. Whole simulation
was performed in ANSYS-CFX. The results obtained from
simulation showed high pressure in splitter and deep face of the
bucket. The torque calculation was further used to calculate the
efficiency and analytical validation of the runner.

=
(4)

= +
(5)

Index Terms - KhimtiHydropower, Pelton turbine, Computational

Fluid Dynamics (CFD) andInternational Electrotechnical
Commission (IEC)

II. METHODS
2.1 Model studies and scaling down

I. INTRODUCTION
The Pelton turbine is an impulse turbine and uses
kinetic energy of water for power extraction. It is used for
sources with low flow rates and high heads. They have
relatively lower efficiency than Francis turbine at its best
efficiency operation. However, their flat efficiency curve
widens application for varying operating conditions.The
simulation is the process of developing virtual environment
of real world process. The simulation is important before the
actual operation of turbine as it helps to optimize the design
according to obtained values of flow velocities, pressure
distribution and efficiency. The results obtained from CFD
are of great interest since these findings can be used to
minimize testing time and cost as well as to analyze failure
conditions.
The research was performed to calculate and validate
torque by computational method. ANSYS-CFX was used for
the simulation process and drawing out the conclusion.
Equations 1, 2 and 3 represent Navier Stokes equations of
conservation of mass, momentum and energy respectively
[1]. Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) turbulence
modeling is the appropriate choice for a Pelton turbine
simulation [2]. The fluid used is incompressible and there is
not significant change in temperature. Equations 4 and 5 are
the modification for incompressible fluid and by neglecting
energy equation.

Scaling down of the prototype is important to reduce

the time consumption and to ease the computational
processing in normal computers. It is difficult to simulate
with the actual condition in CFD. Equations 6,7 and 8
represents head coefficient, flow coefficient and power
coefficient for model studies. The model is presumed to
have same values of speed ratio, flow ratio and specific
speed [3].

=
(6)

=
(7)

=
(8)

The scaling factor of 0.35 was used. The factor greater

than 0.28 was found to satisfy IEC 60193 criteria for Pelton
turbines[4]. Table1 shows the values for prototype and
model with same speed of 600 rpm.
Table 1: Different parameters for prototype and model
Parameters
Pitch circle diameter (PCD)
Head (H)
Discharge (Q)
Power (P)

Unit
mm
m
Ltr/s
kW

Prototype
1400
660
2150
12000

Model
490
80.85
92.18
63.02

* Corresponding author: Sanam.pudasainee@gmail.com

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S. Pudasaini et al.: Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis of Pelton runner of Khimti Hydro-power Project of.......
2.2 Domain creation and Meshing
Separate domains were created for stationary and
rotating components and meshing were performed
accordingly. Three buckets were taken into consideration
minimizing computational time. The buckets were further
sliced via splitter to reduce the computational time; the flow
pattern
being
symmetricwithin
two
halves
of
buckets.Diametrically sliced nozzle was made in stationary
domain. Pitch ratio was maintained to value 1 between
domain interfaces by maintaining equal area in interface
region.
Two different meshing was performed for both
domains. Buckets consisted of complex geometric surfaces
and nozzle of simpler geometry. Hexahedral and prismatic

elements were used in structured area whereas tetrahedral

and pyramidal elements are used in unstructured areas [5].
Minimum size of 2 mm were kept in areas of interests such
as bucket and nozzle regions.
2.3 Boundary conditions
Mass flow inlet and opening pressure produced better
convergence[2]. The inlet boundary condition for nozzle
was set to bulk mass flow rate with value of 23.04 kg/s
normal to boundary condition. The inlet air velocity of 0.01
m/s were introduced for better stability of result[2]. Buckets
were set to wall with no slip condition. The rest of the faces
were set to opening with relative pressure of 0 atm; with 1
atm of reference pressure.Fig. 3 shows boundary conditions
applied.

Fig. 1: Meshed Stationary Domain

(a) Air Inlet

(d) Opening

Fig. 2: Meshed Rotating Domain

(b) Wall

(c) Domain Interface

(e)Symmetry

(f) Water Inlet

Fig. 3: Boundary Conditions

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S. Pudasaini et al.: Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis of Pelton runner of Khimti Hydro-power Project of.......
2.4 Turbulence modeling

3.2 Torque variation

The standard k- and k- model are two equation

models; first one gives better convergence in free stream
region while latter giving better result in wall bounded
region. Shear Stress Transport (SST) model is also the two
equation model blending the free stream advantages of the
k- model with the wall bounded advantages of the k-
model. SST turbulence model was used as good
convergence was required in both near wall region and
region far away from the wall [6, 7].

The torque variation in the bucket was monitored in

every time steps by the solver. The torque values were
exported to Microsoft Excel; the graph was plotted for
middle bucket and then replicated by the use of bucket
frequency of 220 s-1for 22 number of buckets.The
replication was done till the summation graph gave steady
values as shown in Fig. 5. The plot obtained was due to half
nozzle and the maximum torque on the runner at a time is
given by peak value in summation curve multiplied by 4 as
there are two nozzles in each unit.

III. RESULTS
After the simulation pressure distribution and torque
variation in the turbine bucket was analyzed.
3.1 Pressure distribution
The pressure distribution in the bucket was due to
impact of high jet. Result showed high pressure in the
bottom of the bucket with the value of 1.858105 Pa. The
pressure distribution throughout the bucket is shown in Fig.
4.

The mesh dependent test was performed while

analyzing the torque variation. The relevance was increased
for finer mesh. The number of nodes were decreased while
increasing mesh quality. The same domain set up but with
different mesh setting purported the torque variation as
shown in Table 2. The standard torque was calculated with
the power obtained from power coefficient and the angular
velocity of runner. Torque value from mesh M3 resulted in
87.71% of runner efficiency. The plot obtained for each
mesh condition are shown in Fig. 5.
Table 2: Mesh quality and mesh dependent test
SN

Total no
of nodes

Calculated
total
torque
(Nm)

Standard
total
torque
(Nm)

Torque
Error
percent

1200306

Maximu
m
bucket
torque
(Nm)
282.39

M1

918.52

1003

8.42

M2

268338

276.12

925.4

1003

7.73

M3

161099

316.52

1017.56

1003

1.45

M4

311143

305.38

989.48

1003

1.34

Fig. 4: Pressure Distribution

Torque plot for M2

50

50

-50 0

20

40

60

80

100

-100
-150
-200
-250

bucket duplicates (n=t*1/220)

120

Torque (Nm)

Torque (Nm)

Torque plot for M1

-30

-50

20

70

-100
-150
-200
-250

bucket duplicates (n=t*1/220)

Fig. 5: Torque variations for different mesh sizes M1 and M2

120

S. Pudasaini et al.: Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis of Pelton runner of Khimti Hydro-power Project of.......

Torque plot for M4

Torque plot for M3

50

50

-30

-50

0
20

70

120

-100
-150
-200
-250

Torque (Nm)

Torque (Nm)

0
-30

-50

20

70

120

-100
-150
-200
-250

-300

bucket duplicates (n=t*1/220)

-300

bucket duplicates (n=t*1/220)

Fig. 5: Torque variations for different mesh sizes M3 and M4

V. CONCLUSION
Performance evaluation in a real fluid flow condition
of a Peltonrunner was accomplished with help of CFD
analysis tools. The simulation was performed in
symmetrically sliced three buckets, half nozzle with 120
domain angle. Runner efficiency of 87.71 % was obtained.
SST model provided good convergence. During the
simulations, results obtained were directly dependent on the
accuracy in domain set up, quality of mesh, turbulence
model and boundary conditions. The result obtained can be
improved by increasing the mesh quality and the number of
mesh nodes. Different turbulence model can be used for
making comparison in the result. The experimental
validation would be further work to this research.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors are very much thankful to Department of
Mechanical Engineering and Turbine Testing Lab of
Kathmandu University for providing us this opportunity to
carry out research.

Rentech Symposium Compendium, Volume 4, September 2014

REFERENCES
[1] Sayma, A. Computational Fluid Dynamics.
Abdulnaser Sayma & Ventus Publishing ApS.
2009.
[2] Barstad, Lorentz Fjellanger,CFD analysis of Pelton
turbine, June 2012.
[3] Kumar, Dr. D.S. Fluid Mechanics And Fluid Power
Engineering,2012 Edition.
[4] Hydraulic Turbines, Storage pumps and pump
turbines- Model acceptance tests (IEC 60193), 1999
[5] ANSYS Inc. ANSYS Modeling and Meshing
Guide, Release 10.1 (2005, August).
[6] ANSYS Inc. ANSYS CFX- Solver Theory Guide,
Release 12.1 (2009, November).
[7] Amod Panthee, Hari Prasad Neopane, Bhola Thapa
- CFD Analysis of Pelton Runner - published at:
"International Journal of Scientific and Research
Publications (IJSRP), Volume 4, Issue 8, August
2014 Edition".

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