Renewable Energy 36 (2011) 2395e2403

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Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Design of the rotor blades of a mini hydraulic bulb-turbine

L.M.C. Ferro a, b, *, L.M.C. Gato b, A.F.O. Falco b
a b

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Escola Superior de Tecnologia de Setbal, Polytechnic Institute of Setbal, Campus do IPS, Estefanilha, 2910-761 Setbal, Portugal IDMEC, Instituto Superior Tcnico, Technical University of Lisbon, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal

a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history: Received 26 July 2010 Accepted 16 January 2011 Available online 21 March 2011 Keywords: Axial-ow turbine Design method Rotor blades Singularity method FLUENT code

a b s t r a c t
The rotor blades of a mini hydraulic turbine were designed using a quasi-three-dimensional method. The meridional ow is computed by a streamline curvature method and the blade-to-blade ow by a singularity method. The rotor blade sections are the NACA 66 (MOD) with a 0.8 meanline. The camber and the stagger angle of the blade sections are adjusted to full the prescribed angular momentum distributions, at the rotor inlet and outlet sections, and zero-incidence ow angle, at the blade leading edge. Turbine head and efciency versus ow rate curves were obtained for different rotor blade stagger angles at constant rotational speed. Radial distributions of time-averaged velocity and pressure, measured at the rotor exit section with a ve-hole probe, are also presented. The design and the experimental results are compared with three-dimensional inviscid ow numerical results computed by the FLUENT code. The domain is discretized by unstructured meshes with a maximum of 2.5 106 elements. The numerical results show good agreement with the design values and the experimental results, validating the design hypothesis of small radial velocity in the ow through the rotor. 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction The contribution of electricity from renewable energy to total electricity consumption has increased in Europe (EU-27) in last decade, from 13.1% in 1997 to 15.6% at 2007 [1]. Hydropower account for about 51.2% of the electricity generated from renewable energy in 2008, with a production of 359 TWh from an installed capacity of 102.3 GW. Production from small hydro plants in 2008 was 42.7 TWh for an installed capacity of 12.6 GW. (Mini-hydro power systems were responsible for 10.2 TWh with a capacity of 3.0 GW.) Small hydro plants not only represent a good technological solution to provide electrical energy to disperse communities specially in developing countries but also can be a good solution in industrialized countries, due to their relatively small environmental impact and to the fact that most of the large scale hydro resource is already explored. In the European strategy, a special effort is to be devoted to the development of low-head plants (and axial-ow turbines), because of their large potential and their relatively small environmental impact [2].

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 351 265790000; fax: 351 265721869. E-mail addresses: lferro@hidrol.ist.utl.pt (L.M.C. Ferro), luis.gato@ist.utl.pt (L.M.C. Gato), falcao@hidrol.ist.utl.p (A.F.O. Falco). 0960-1481/$ e see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.renene.2011.01.037

A design method for the inlet guide vanes for mini hydraulic bulb-turbines was presented by the authors in [3]. The present paper presents a design method for low-cost mini hydraulic bulbturbine rotor blades. The rotor blades are bounded by two coaxial cylindrical surfaces. The shape of the blade is dened using a quasithree-dimensional design method, by prescribing constant angular momentum distribution along the span at the rotor inlet and exit sections. The meridional through-ow is computed by a streamline curvature method and the blade-to-blade ow by a singularity surface method. The blade sections are the NACA 66 (MOD) with a 0.8 meanline, as described by Brockett [4]. Maximum blade relative thickness is prescribed at two sections: one close to the hub and the other close to the blade tip. Maximum thickness of the other sections is obtained from linear interpolation along the radius. The blade section meanline camber and the blade stagger angle are computed to full the required design circulation and zero-incidence ow at the leading edge. A 0.5 m diameter turbine rotor with four blades was manufactured and tested in an airow rig to validate the design method. Measurement of the turbine head and power versus ow rate were performed for different rotational speeds and rotor blade stagger angles. Traversing measurements of velocity and pressure along radial directions were also made at the exit section of the rotor blades with a ve-hole probe. The experimental

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Nomenclature A c CL Ctot D DH g H h ku kVm N Np p Ptot Q r* (r,q,z) s S1 S2 T t U V V Vm Vr,Vq,Vz Vref cross sectional area blade chord lift coefcient total pressure coefcient diameter; tip runner diameter hub runner diameter acceleration due to gravity available head linear displacement of the probe measured from the hub wall dimensionless tip speed velocity dimensionless meridional velocity number of elements of discretized airfoil contour number of points at each measurement line of vehole probe static pressure total pressure ow rate dimensionless radius 2r/D cylindrical coordinate system circumferential pitch blade-to-blade surface meridional surface torque blade thickness runner tip velocity vector of absolute ow velocity absolute ow velocity meridional ow velocity component absolute velocity components along r,q,z directions reference velocity 4Q =pD2 D2 H

V* W W w (x,y,z) Z

dimensionless velocity vector of relative ow velocity relative ow velocity complex velocity cartesian coordinate system number of rotor blades

Greek symbol absolute ow angle measured from meridional direction arctan (Vq/Vm); also angle of attack ap relaxation factor for pressure av relaxation factor for momemtum b absolute ow angle between meridional and radial directions, arctan (Vr/Vm) G vortex circulation intensity; also swirl number h turbine efciency l stagger angle n kinematic viscosity P power coefcient r density s intensity of source distribution; also swirl number F dimensionless ow coefcient J dimensionless head U rotor angular speed

Subscript 1,2 ax hyd m max min

inlet and outlet, respectively axial hydraulic meridional maximum minimum relative to design conditions

results for the velocity and pressure distributions are compared with the prescribed design conditions and with numerical results from three-dimensional analysis with the FLUENT code for inviscid ow. 2. Design of rotor blades The through-ow analysis approach, as described by the authors in [3], is applied to the design of a mini hydraulic turbine rotor with four blades. A streamline curvature method is used for the solution of the meridional ow and a singularity method is utilized for the blade-to-blade ow. The four rotor blades are radially set between two coaxial cylindrical wall surfaces. The outer-diameter is D 0.5 m and the inner diameter is DH 0.214 m. Three steps need to be considered in the design of a turbine: (i) specication of the design variables: ow rate, Qh, available head, Hh, and rotational speed, U; (ii) denition of the velocity diagrams upstream and downstream of the blade rows; (iii) calculation of the blade geometry: camber and thickness distributions and cascade chord-to-pitch ratio, c/s. One can start by specifying one of the three design variables (e.g. Hh) and then compute the other two from dimensionless values of the tip speed velocity, kU U/(2gHh)1/2 and the meridional velocity kVm Vm =2gHh 1=2, obtained in the literature from the experience of different manufacturers of hydraulic turbines [5,6]. The radial distribution of the angular momentum, rVq, at the inlet section of the rotor can then be calculated from the known values of Hh, Qh and U.

2.1. Computation of the meridional velocity eld The meridional ow eld through the turbine is computed by the streamline curvature method as described in [7]. Two quasiorthogonal lines were considered at the rotor: one at the blade leading edge and the other at the trailing edge. A constant spanwise distribution of the angular momentum, rVq, was prescribed at the leading and trailing edges, with the maximum (design prescribed) value at the leading edge and zero at the tailing edge. The radial coordinates of the meridional streamlines and the axial velocity component distributions at the inlet and the outlet sections of the rotor blades are used as input data for the computation of the blade-to-blade ow, as explained in Section 2.3. 2.2. Computation of the blade-to-blade velocity eld The blade-to-blade ow is represented by the ow through a rectilinear cascade of blades computed by a panel method [8]. The airfoil contour is discretized by N linear elements with constant strength source distribution on each element. The circulation is modeled by a vortex distribution on the airfoil meanline. The complex velocity w VxiVy induced at z x iy by a source of strength s at z x ih is given by [9] w(z) s/(Zz) and the complex velocity induced by a cascade of sources of pitch s is

wz

sp
s

coth

pz z
s

(1)

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6 4 2 0 -2

r =0 .518 r =0 .962

b
Design r*=0.962

1.0 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6

r =0.518 r =0.962

x/c

-4 -6 -8 -10 -12 0 1 2 3

Design r =0.518

0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1

0.0 -10

-5

-Cp( min)

10

Fig. 1. Aerodynamic properties of the two reference rotor blade sections: (a) minimum pressure envelope; (b) suction peak coordinates, x/c, versus angle of attack, a.

The nal equation for the velocity due to a constant distribution on a panel is obtained by integration of Eq. (1). The nal result is [10]

Vx iVy seib ln

sinhpz z2 =s ; sinhpz z1 =s

(2)

panel and of the Kutta condition: equal velocity magnitude at the two control points close to the trailing edge. The resulting linear system of equations is solved either by a Gauss direct method or by a GausseSeidel iterative method. 2.3. Computation of the aerodynamic parameters At the design condition the angular momentum is constant along the spanwise direction (radial direction) at the inlet and the outlet sections, with prescribed non-zero value at the inlet and zero at the outlet. Therefore the radial component Vr of the inviscid ow is zero [11] and the inviscid ow may be assumed as irrotational. Nevertheless the velocity ow eld obtained from the solution of the meridional ow is incompatible with the two-dimensional cascade ow assumptions since the axial velocity is not constant along a streamline through the rotor. For design purposes the average axial velocity and average radial coordinate of the meridional streamlines between the rotor inlet and outlet sections are selected as input to the cascade ow computation. The

where z1 and z2 are the position vectors of the end points of the panel and b is the angle of the panel with the x-axis. Eq. (2) can be simplied when the point z is the midpoint of the panel. The nal equation is

Vx iVy ipseib spsin b icosb:

(3)

The velocity induced by a vortex is computed replacing s in Eq. (2) by the vortex circulation intensity G and multiplying the result by the imaginary unit i. The strength intensity of the source on each panel and of the vortex distribution on the meanline are computed from the solution of a linear system of N 1 equations, obtained from the application of the impermeability condition at the midpoint of each

1.0

2.0

-Cp

1.5

r* = 0,428 r* = 0,518 r* = 0,666 r* = 0,776 r* = 0,876 r* = 0,962 r* = 1,000

0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.0 -0.2 -0.4

1.0

-0.6 -0.8 -1.0 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5

x/c (%)

-Cp

0.5

0.6 0.5

0.0
-Cp

0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0 -0.1

-0.5

-1.0 0 20 40 60 80 100

-0.2

95

96

97

98

99

100

x/c (%)

x/c (%)
Fig. 2. Design pressure coefcient distributions for the rotor blade sections.

2398 Table 1 Characteristics of the rotor blade cascades. r (mm) 107.0 118.0 129.5 148.5 165.0 180.5 194.5 206.5 219.0 230.0 240.5 250.0 r* 0.428 0.472 0.518 0.594 0.660 0.722 0.778 0.826 0.876 0.920 0.962 1.000 c (mm) 223.0 228.0 233.9 245.1 256.1 267.4 278.2 287.9 298.4 308.0 317.3 326.0 c/s 1.327 1.230 1.150 1.051 0.988 0.943 0.910 0.888 0.867 0.852 0.840 0.830 tmax/c 0.143 0.132 0.120 0.102 0.086 0.073 0.062 0.053 0.044 0.037 0.030 0.024

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fmax/c 0.103 0.085 0.068 0.052 0.042 0.035 0.031 0.028 0.0255 0.0235 0.022 0.0205

l ( )
34.54 41.29 47.30 54.08 58.53 61.76 64.03 65.64 67.04 68.14 69.06 69.77

a ( )
3.87 3.70 2.96 2.34 1.69 1.20 0.93 0.70 0.45 0.26 0.15 0.03

circumferential velocity component at the inlet section is Vq K/r, where K is the specied value of the angular momentum at the inlet section. At the outlet section the circumferential velocity component is zero. The blade sections are the NACA (MOD) 66 type series, with a 0.8, as described by Brockett [4]. These sections exhibit good cavitation properties with almost constant pressure difference between the lower and the upper airfoil surfaces till 0.8c. A linear variation of the maximum thickness tmax along the radius is prescribed with t/c 0.12 for a section close to the hub (r* 0.518) and t/c 0.03 for a section close to the rotor tip (r* 0.962), with r* 2r/D. The cascade chord-to-pitch ratio, c/s, for those two reference sections are computed from (see Ref. [11])

condition. The stagger angle l and the airfoil camber are adjusted to full the prescribed D(rVq) distribution between the inlet and outlet sections, i.e. the circulation G D(rVq)(2p/Z) around the blade sections, zero-incidence ow angle at the leading edge and smooth pressure distributions along the airfoil contour with minimum pressure observed far from the leading edge. The stagger angle and the camber are dened using two different iterative cycles. In the internal cycle the camber of the airfoil is specied and the stagger angle is computed by an iterative method to satisfy the prescribed circulation around the airfoil. In the external cycle the value of the maximum camber of the airfoil is changed so that the pressure distribution on the suction surface is smooth and the suction peak is located far from the leading edge. Fig. 1 shows the minimum pressure envelope and the coordinates, x/c, of the suction peak versus the angle of attack a for the two reference sections. The airfoil boundary is discretized into 320 panels and the meanline into 160 panels. Ten more sections were specied at different radii, after the computation of the two reference sections. The centers of these sections are placed at the radial line connecting the center of the two reference sections. The airfoil chord is obtained assuming straight leading and trailing edges at the meridional plane. The section stagger angle and the camber are computed as described for the two reference sections. Pressure distributions for different radii are shown in Fig. 2. The main characteristics of the proles are presented in Table 1 and three views of the rotor blade are plotted in Fig. 3. 3. Experimental facility The experimental facility is described in detail in Ref. [12]. Air is the working uid. The experimental rig includes the turbine, a DC generator connected to the turbine shaft, a centrifugal fan, a plenum chamber downstream of the turbine diffuser and a calibrated nozzle to measure the ow rate downstream the plenum chamber. The turbine has a 950 mm outer-diameter upstream annular duct, an inlet conical guide vane system, a 0.5 m tipdiameter rotor and a 2 m long, 6 angle, diffuser. The rotor has four blades, Fig. 4. The blades are made of carbon ber and are connected to the hub by a rod. The setting angle of the rotor blades can be changed. The hub and the shroud of the rotor are spherical to allow the variation of the blade setting angle without change in clearance. The measurement of the velocity and pressure distributions at the rotor outlet sections was performed with a ve-hole probe: one central hole and four equidistant lateral holes (two holes with the center on a plane normal to the probe axis e right and left holes e and

CL

2s DWq ; c WN

(4)

with CL 1.2, for r* 0.518, and CL 0.4, for r* 0.968. In Eq. (4) WN (W1W2)/2 is the mean relative velocity between the inlet and the outlet relative velocities, W1 and W2, and DWq W1W2. A panel method code based on Eqs. (2) and (3) is used to optimize the pressure distribution over the blade surface by modifying the camber and the stagger angle of the two reference sections. The method uses straight elements with source distributions of constant intensity s at each panel. The circulation is generated by a vortex distribution along the airfoil meanline. The meanline is discretized into straight elements with constant vortex distribution. The intensity g of the vortex distribution at midpoint of each panel is given by g g0sm, where sm is the distance from the midpoint of each panel to the trailing edge, measured along the meanline, and g0 is a constant to be computed from the Kutta

a
Leading edge

b
Trailing edge

Leading edge Trailing edge

Fig. 3. Geometry of the rotor blades: (a) view ZY; (b) view XY; (c) view ZX.

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Fig. 4. Turbine rotor.

two others on the probe axis e upper and lower holes) [12]. The probe has two degrees of freedom: radial displacement and rotation around the probe axis. The radial and yaw movements of the probe are produced by a mechanical system with a step displacement of 0.01 mm and an angular step of 0.1. The probe axis is positioned along the radial direction. The probe is rotated until the pressure difference between the left and right holes vanishes. The velocity direction (two angles), the dynamic pressure and the total pressure are obtained by linear interpolation from the probe calibration curves. The experimental facility was also designed to measure the turbine performance variables. The available head H is computed from the pressure difference between the atmosphere and the plenum chamber. The ow rate Q is measured by the pressure difference between the plenum chamber and the calibrated nozzle, the torque T by an inductive transducer placed between the rotor and the DC generator, the angular speed U by a photoelectric transducer and pressure by differential manometers. 4. Computation of inviscid three-dimensional ow using the FLUENT code The FLUENT 6.2 [13] code was used to compute the threedimensional inviscid ow through the rotor. The contour of each section is described by 602 points. The domain is divided into discrete volumes by a computational mesh generated using the GAMBIT 2.2 code [14] with the turbo option. The numerical results presented were computed with an unstructured tetrahedral mesh with 2,572,942 elements. The numerical calculations used the segregated method with PISO [15] pressureevelocity coupling algorithm. QUICK [16] interpolation scheme for momentum and a second-order upwind scheme for the pressure were applied. The equations of motion (continuity and momentum) were solved in a rotating frame using the absolute velocity vector V as independent variable. The boundary conditions used are the velocity-inlet type condition at inlet section, prescribing the radial distribution of the velocity vector (absolute value and direction) and the outow condition at the outlet section. The velocity prole at the inlet section is given by

Vz

rVq h Q and Vr 0; ; V r A q

(5)
Fig. 5. Experimental results for dimensionless head, J, and efciency, h, versus ow rate coefcient, F, for l 85, 70 and 60 .

where A is the inlet section area. Periodic boundary conditions are used at the periodic boundary surfaces.

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5. Results Turbine performance curves were obtained for six rotor blade setting angles, dened by the tip section stagger angle: l 85, 80, 75, 70, 65 and 60 . The variables measured in each test are the static pressure at the plenum chamber (turbine exit pressure), the static pressure at the rotor outlet section, the rotor angular speed, U, the ow rate, Q, and the shaft torque, T. Tests were performed for 1138 rpm  U  2561 rpm, corresponding to Reynolds number Re UD2/v between 2.0 106 and 4.4 106. Results for the dimensionless head, J, and efciency, h, versus the ow rate coefcient, F, for l 85, 70 and 60 , are plotted in Fig. 5. Isolines of efciency, h, on planes (F, l) and (F, J) are plotted in Fig. 6. They show maximum efciency h 0.877 for F 0.117 and l 74.9 . Values of the available head and power coefcients for maximum efciency are J 0.0677 and P 0.00653, respectively. Measurements with the ve-hole probe described in Section 3 were made at the rotor outlet section. The probe moves along the radial direction on a plane 142 mm downstream of the plane dened by the rotor blades axis. At each traversing line, the span of the probe displacement is 172 mm. A total of Np 23 points are considered at each measurement line with a cosine law distribution for the probe position,

probe and the torque. The velocity is non-dimensionalized by the mean-velocity at the rotor inlet section

Vref

p D2 D2 H

4Q

:

(8)

The dimensionless velocity prole at the inlet section can be computed from Eq. (5) and is given by
* * Vz 1:0; Vq

rVq h Vref r

* 0: and Vr

(9)

hi h1

  hmax  0  cos20 cosfi ; 2cos20

(6)

where h is the probe linear displacement along the radial direction, measured from the hub wall, h1 1.9 mm and hmax 168.1 mm. The last point, with h 170 mm is 2 mm away from the shroud wall. The values of f0 i are given by

f0i f01

180 2 20 i 1; Np 1


(7)

with f0 1 20 and i 1,., Np. Measurements were made for two setting angles of the rotor blades, l 70 and l 74 . For each angle, measurements were made at different ow rates and constant rotor angular speed. The variables measured at each test are the nozzle differential pressure, the differential pressure between the right and left probe holes, the pressure at the plenum chamber, the pressures on the ve-hole

The angular momentum is made non-dimensional by VrefD/2. The experimental and the design (axisymmetric) radial distri* , the radial velocity butions for the axial velocity component, Vz * component, Vr and the angular momentum, (rVq)*, for l 70 and l 74 are plotted in Fig. 7 for ve different ow rates. Good agreement between the experimental results and the design values for the axial and radial velocity components is observed (except in the vicinity of the hub, due to the shape modication of the blade so that it can turn around its axis and the conical shape of the hub downstream of the rotor). The rVq distributions for ow rate coefcients close to the design value are almost invariant with the radial coordinate. The computational domain for the three-dimensional ow is composed by an annular cylindrical duct with inside diameter DH and outside diameter D. The total length is 0.6 m (i.e. 3.26cax at the hub and 5.31cax at the shroud, where cax is the chord axial length). The distance between the inlet section and the leading edge is Dz/ cax 0.79, at the hub, and Dz/cax 1.62, at the shroud. The corresponding values for the distance from the trailing edge to the domain exit section are 1.48 and 2.68. The blade surface is computed from the coordinates of the twelve sections used in the denition of the blade geometry, as described in Table 1. To stabilize the iterative process, a rst approximation of the solution was obtained for U 0. Then the rotor rotational speed was increased till the design rotational speed U. The procedure chosen for the present test cases was: (i) angular speed U 0, linear interpolation for pressure and momentum, with relaxation factors ap 0.3, for the momentum, and av 0.7, for the velocity; (ii) angular speed U 0, second-order interpolation for pressure, with ap 0.3, and QUICK for the momentum, av 0.7 and (iii)

Fig. 6. Isolines of the efciency h: (a) plane (F, l); (b) plane (F, J).

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* , V * and (rV )* at the rotor outlet section: (a) l 70 ; (b) l 74 . Fig. 7. Experimental results for radial distributions of Vz q r

acceleration of the rotor till the specied rotational speed U, with ap 0.3 and av 0.4. The evolution of the residuals in the numerical solution of the equations of continuity and of the threecomponents of the momentum are shown in Fig. 8. Fig. 9 shows distributions of the axial and the radial velocity components and the angular momentum for (i) the design values given by the solution of the meridional ow, (ii) the experimentally obtained values and (iii) the circumferential mass average of

numerical results computed by FLUENT for inviscid ow and (iv) for viscous ow [17]. A fairly good agreement is observed between numerical results for the inviscid ow and the design values for the axial and radial velocity components; the computed value for the angular momentum of the inviscid ow at the outlet section is negative, but very small, with a swirl number G [13], dened as the ratio of the axial ux of angular momentum to the axial ux of axial momentum,

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Z rVq V$ndA

Z Vz V$ndA
A

0:0067;

(10)

rhid

where A is the cross section area, n is the unit vector of the outside normal and rhyd is the hydraulic radius dened by

rhyd

1 A

Z r dA
A

! 3 3 rmin 2 rmax : 2 2 3 rmax rmin

(11)

The area-averaged ow angle with the circumferential direction is

Fig. 8. Evolution of the residuals of continuity and momentum components equations for the grid of 2,572,942 elements.

1 V dA q C B B C  BZ C A a arctanB C 0:51 : B C @ Vz dAA

A

0Z

(12)

* ; (b) radial velocity V * and (c) Fig. 9. Comparison of numerical, experimental and design velocity and angular momentum distributions at the rotor exit section: (a) axial velocity Vz r angular momentum (rVq)*.

Fig. 10. Isolines of numerical results for velocity angles, a and b, of angular momentum and of total pressure coefcient at the rotor exit section.

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Fig. 11. Pressure coefcient distribution around rotor blade sections: (a) r* 0.518; (b) r* 0.778 and (c) r* 0.962.

Axial and radial velocity distributions obtained by the solution of inviscid and viscous ow are similar, except close to the rotor hub and the turbine shroud. The agreement is poorer for the circumferential velocity due to the viscous effect on the turbine shroud and on the hub surface. Experimental results show poorer agreement with design values than with the numerical results. Due to experimental constraints, the measurement plane is located inside the diffuser 142 mm downstream of the cross section dened by the rotor blade axis, where the probe displacement span is 172 mm, i.e. greater than DDH 143 mm. On the other hand, the computational domain is an annular cylindrical duct with Dr 143 mm without any conical zone downstream of the rotor. The experimental axial velocity is smaller than the numerical one due to the increase in cross section area. A qualitative agreement is observed for the angular momentum distributions of the experimental and the numerical results. Isolines of velocity angles a arctan (Vq/Vm) and b arctan (Vr/Vm), of the angular momentum and of the total pressure coefcient Ctot R 2 A at the exit section of the domain are plotted in ptot dA=0:5rVref
A

87.7% for l 74.9 and F 0.117 was obtained from the measured values. Numerical results of the three-dimensional inviscid ow calculations obtained with FLUENT at exit section as well as pressure distribution for the relative ow on the blade contour show very good agreement with design values. The experimental results show that the rotor blades produce with very good approximation the desired turbine head at the design condition of zero angular momentum at the exit section. Acknowledgments This work was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology under contract PTDC/EME-MFE/66608/ 2006. References
[1] EUROPA e Eurostat e environment and energy European Commission. Available at: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/.energy/ data/database; June 2010. [2] Thematic Network on Small Hydropower (TN SHP). Proposals for a European strategy of research, development and demonstration (RD&D) for renewable energy for small hydropower. Available at: http://www.esha.be; 2005. Technical report, MHyLab and ESHA, Brussels. [3] Ferro LMC, Gato LMC, Falco AFO. Design and experimental validation of the inlet guide vane system of a mini hydraulic bulb-turbine. Renew Energ 2010;35(9):1920e8. [4] Brockett T. Minimum pressure envelopes for modied NACA-66 sections with NACA a 0.8 camber and buships type I and II sections. Washington, DC: DTMB; 1966. N. 1780. [5] Raabe J. Hydro power. Dsseldorf: VDI-Verlag; 1985. [6] Nechleba N. Hydraulyc turbines, their design and equipment. Prague: Artie; 1957. [7] Denton JD. Throughow calculations for transonic axial ow turbines. J Eng Power Trans ASME 1978;97:549e60. [8] Hess JL, Smith AMO. Calculation of potential ow about arbitrary bodies. Prog Aerosp Sci 1967;8:1e138. [9] Lamb H. Hydrodynamics. Cambridge University Press; 1932. [10] Geising JP. Extension of the Douglas Neumann program to problems of lifting, innite cascades. Douglas Aircraf Company Report 31653; 1964. [11] Lakshminarayana B. Fluid dynamics and heat transfer of turbomachinery. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Artie; 1996. [12] Ferro LMC. Numerical and experimental study of the ow through an axial hydraulic turbine (in Portuguese). Ph.D thesis, Instituto Superior Tcnico. Portugal: Technical University of Lisbon; 2009. [13] Fluent Incorporated. Fluent 6.2 users guide. USA: Centerra Resource Park; 2005. [14] Fluent Incorporated. Gambit 2.2 users guide. USA: Centerra Resource Park; 2005. [15] Issa RI. Solution of implicitly discretized uid ow equations by operator splitting. J Comput Phys 1986;62(1):40e65. [16] Leonard BP, Mokhtari S. ULTRA-SHARP nonoscillatory convection schemes for high-speed steady multidimensional ow e NASA TM 1-2568 (ICOMP-90-12). Technical report. USA: NASA Lewis Research Center; 1990. [17] Tiago AF, Ferro LMC, Ea L, Gato LMC. Computation of viscous ow through an axial turbine rotor (in Portuguese). II Conferncia nacional de mtodos numricos em mecnica de uidos e termodinmica08. Portugal: Univ. Aveiro; 2008.

Fig. 10. The distributions of the four variables are almost uniform at the exit section with values close to design ones. However the isolines of the circumferential angle a show that the deection of the ow is greater than the design condition for the sections close to the hub, whereas the opposite occurs close to the tip. The design pressure coefcient distributions for the relative rel , around the contour for the sections at r* 0.518, close to ow, Cp the hub, r* 0.778, at middle section, and r* 0.962, close to the tip, are plotted in Fig. 11. Also shown in the same gure are the FLUENT code numerical results for three-dimensional inviscid ow. The relative pressure coefcient is dened by
rel Cp

p pN ; 1rW 2 N 2

(13)

where pN (pinletpoutlet)/2. Good agreement between the numerical and the design values is observed for the three sections. Small differences close to the trailing edge, for 0.95 < x/c < 1, might be explained by three-dimensional effects. 6. Conclusions The rotor of a mini hydraulic turbine was designed using the through-ow analysis approach, combining the streamline curvature method for the solution of the meridional ow and a panel method for the blade-to-blade ow. The designed rotor was manufactured and tested in an airow rig. Measurement of the turbine head, ow rate and power was performed for different rotational speeds and rotor setting angles. Turbine maximum efciency of