Scientific Bulletin of the

Politehnica University of Timisoara

Transactions on Mechanics
Special issue
Workshop on
Vortex Dominated Flows
Achievements and Open Problems
Timisoara, Romania, June 10 - 11, 2005
A NUMERICAL STUDY OF THE 3D SWIRLING FLOW
UPSTREAM THE KAPLAN TURBINE RUNNER
AT OFF-DESIGN OPERATING CONDITIONS
Sebastian MUNTEAN, Senior Researcher*
Center of Advanced Research in Engineering
Sciences
Romanian Academy - Timioara Branch
Daniel BALINT, Assist. Prof.
Department of Hydraulic Machinery
Politehnica University of Timioara
Romeo F. SUSAN-RESIGA, Professor
Department of Hydraulic Machinery
Politehnica University of Timioara
Sandor BERNAD, Senior Researcher
Center of Advanced Research in Engineering
Sciences
Romanian Academy - Timioara Branch
Ioan ANTON, Professor, Member of the Romanian Academy
Department of Hydraulic Machinery
Politehnica University of Timioara
*Corresponding author: Bv Mihai Viteazu 24, 300223, Timisoara, Romania
Tel.: (+40) 256 403692, Fax: (+40) 256 403700, Email: seby@acad-tim.tm.edu.ro
ABSTRACT
The present paper addresses the hydrodynamic field
in the spiral case and the distributor (stay vanes and
guide vanes) upstream the Kaplan turbine runner. The
spiral case and distributor generate a suitable swirling
flow further ingested by the Kaplan runner. The 3D
computational domain is bounded upstream by the
power plant inlet while the annular outlet section is
conventionally considered at the reference plane of
the Kaplan runner.
An important step in designing and/or optimizing
the runner blades is the determination of both axial
and tangential velocity components at runner inlet for
the whole operating range.
Due to its specific geometry, the flow upstream
the Kaplan runner must be considered full three-
dimensional. No simplified geometrical assumptions
are made in this paper, such as employing the geo-
metrical periodicity of the guide vanes. However,
we assume the flow to be steady, since unsteadiness
is weak in strongly accelerated flows upstream the
hydraulic turbine runner.
KEYWORDS
Kaplan turbine, swirling flow,
NOMENCLATURE
H [m] head
Q [m
3
/s] discharge
0
a [m] guide vane opening
BEP
H
H
H =

[-] dimensionless head

BEP
Q
Q
Q =

[-] dimensionless discharge

BEP
a
a
a
0
0
0
=

[-] dimensionless guide vane

opening
am
r
r
V
V
c = [-] radial velocity coefficient
am
u
u
V
V
c = [-] tangential velocity coefficient
am
z
z
V
V
c = [-] axial velocity coefficient
g [m/s
2
] gravity
Subscripts and Superscripts
r radial direction
u tangential direction
z axial direction
ABBREVIATIONS
ref reference section (draft tube inlet section)
h,s hub, shroud
in, out inlet section, outlet section
Proceedings of the Workshop on VORTEX DOMINATED FLOWS. ACHIEVEMENTS AND OPEN PROBLEMS, Timisoara, Romania, June 10-11, 2005
98
1. INTRODUCTION
The hydrodynamics of Kaplan turbines is a more
than a century old subject that benefits from a large
body of both theoretical and experimental investigations
[Ant79, Rad97]. Traditionally, the main subject of
these studies has been the turbine runner, with the
development of powerful and reliable tools for
designing the runner blades. Simplified quasi-3D
methods are currently used in the runner domain,
taking advantage on the quasi-axial meridional flow
in this region. On the other hand, the spiral case,
distributor (stay vanes and guide vanes), as well as
the draft tube, do not lend themselves to such a
simplified analysis due to the intrinsic three-dimen-
sionality of the flow. As a result, a realistic analysis
of the spiral case/distributor hydrodynamics must
consider a full 3D flow simulation. This is the approach
employed by most of recent studies that use numerical
simulations [Bar97, Asc00, Nil02, Mun04]. On the
other hand, the flow upstream the turbine runner can
be considered steady. As a result, a 3D steady flow
model is employed in the present study.
The main purpose of the spiral case and distributor
is to prepare a suitable swirling flow further ingested
by the Kaplan runner. An important step in designing
and/or optimizing the runner blades is the determination
of both axial and tangential velocity components at
runner inlet. Traditionally, the analytical expression
considered for tangential velocity component c
u
corresponds to a free vortex, while axial velocity
component c
a
is considered constant. However,
these design assumptions are quite far from the
actual velocity field. As a result, we have introduced
a new analytical representation of the velocity
components upstream to the Kaplan runner at best
efficient point [Mun04].
The energetical and cavitational behaviors of the
Kaplan runner at off-design operating points represent
a crucial requirement. Consequently, the velocity
profile downstream to the distributor at off-design
operating conditions is needed. Since we are not
interested in modeling the perturbations produced by
the stay and guide vane wakes, we are performing in
the present paper an inviscid 3D steady flow numerical
simulation. The 3D incompressible Euler flow is
computed using the commercial expert code FLUENT
6.0.12 [Flu01].
Section 2 presents the computational domain for a
Kaplan spiral case and distributor. The outflow section
is conventionally defined as the Kaplan turbine runner
reference plane. A 3D unstructured mesh is generated,
with approximately 2*106 finite volume cells [Gam01].
This section also presents the inflow/outflow boundary
conditions considered in the present study.
Section 3 is devoted to the flow numerical simulation
and the parallel computing techniques. The compu-
tational domain, and its unstructured mesh is partitioned
in five subdomains, using the METIS (Ref 10) graph
partitioning procedures available in FLUENT. The
minimization of inter-processor communication leads
to an almost ideal scalability. A preliminary analysis
of the 3D hydrodynamic field for the 6 operating
points considered at constant head and variable guide
vane opening reveals the main flow features of the
swirling flow upstream the Kaplan runner.
The last section presents the main conclusions of
the present study as well as its relevance to the Kaplan
turbine design and optimization.
2. COMPUTATIONAL DOMAIN AND
BOUNDARY CONDITIONS FOR THE
KAPLAN TURBINE SPIRAL CASE AND
DISTRIBUTOR
Figure 1 shows the 3D computational domain con-
sidered in the present study. The inlet section corre-
sponds to the power plant inlet section. The stay
vanes have different profiles, as shown in Figure 2.
The first seven (1 7) stay vanes are identical,
followed by a different vane 8, two identical vanes 9
and 10, and finally a different stay vane 11 near the
spiral case tongue. All 24 guide vanes are identical
and have a symmetrical profile, as shown in Figure 2.
The oulet section is conventionally chosen in the
runner reference plane. Normally, one would consider
a computational procedure that couples the steady
absolute flow in spiral case/distributor domain with
the relative flow in the runner [Mun02, Nil02].
However, a separate flow simulation can still be
performed in the domain from Figure 1, by choosing
a suitable boundary condition on the outlet section.
An unstructured 3D mesh is generated, as shown
in Figure 3. In the inflow region we consider a
relatively coarse mesh, and the mesh is further refined
downstream as the flow accelerates. A particular
attention is paid to the discretization near the stay/guide
vanes, to correctly represent the local large velocity
gradients. The mesh from Figure 3 has approximately
2 million computational cells.
A 3D steady, inviscid and incompressible flow is
considered, thus we solve the steady Euler equations:
0 = V (1)
( ) p = V V (2)
On the inlet section we prescribe a constant total
pressure. The value of the total pressure is adjusted
to obtain the maximum operating flow rate for the
Kaplan turbine under consideration. On the outlet
section, the swirling flow structure is compatible
with the so-called pressure radial equilibrium. This
condition is derived from the radial component of
the Euler equation,
r
p
r
V
z
V
V
V
r
V
r
V
V
u r
z
r u r
r

1
2
(3)
Proceedings of the Workshop on VORTEX DOMINATED FLOWS. ACHIEVEMENTS AND OPEN PROBLEMS, Timisoara, Romania, June 10-11, 2005
99

Figure 1. Three-dimensional computational domain from the power plant inlet to the runner of a Kaplan
turbine. The computational domain includes the spiral case and distributor of the turbine.

Figure 2. Top view of the spiral case and distributor (left)
and a detail view of the stay and guide vanes (right).
Proceedings of the Workshop on VORTEX DOMINATED FLOWS. ACHIEVEMENTS AND OPEN PROBLEMS, Timisoara, Romania, June 10-11, 2005
100

Figure 3. The unstructured mesh generated in the computational domain of Kaplan turbine (approximately 2
million cells).
If the radial velocity component is negligible,
0 V
r
, one obtains the pressure radial equilibrium
condition,
r
V
r
p
u
2
1
=

(4)
This condition has been successfully employed
on the draft tube inlet section when computing the
runner flow [Mun2002IAHR], and it has been
validated experimentally [Dal97]. A reference
pressure is conventionally set to zero at the hub on
the outlet section, since condition (4) defines the
pressure only up to an additive constant.
Note that (4) does not actually takes into account
the runner influence on the flow upstream, but we
consider it appropriate for evaluating the performance
of the spiral case and distributor. The rest of the
domain boundary corresponds to solid walls, with
zero normal velocity condition.
The computations have been performed in six
operating point displaced at constant head, see
Figure 4. The parameters of the operating points
investigated are presented in Table 1.
In order to significantly reduce the time of the
user interactive work an automatic procedure is
used, [Bal05]. The particular scripts of text com-
mand files are implemented in the C programming
language and developed on Korn Shell of Linux
operating system. Using this procedure the compu-
tational domain with different guide vane opening
is automatically generated and its unstructured
mesh. Moreover, the boundary conditions associated
for each operating point is imposed then the compu-
tations is performed.
Table 1. Parameters for the operating points
investigated.
Operating
points
^
H
^
Q
^
0
a
P
1
0.4589 0.621
P
2
0.6453 0.744
P
3
1.05 0.8442 0.867
P
4
0.9767 0.990
P
5
1.2000 1.114
P
6
1.5139 1.240
Proceedings of the Workshop on VORTEX DOMINATED FLOWS. ACHIEVEMENTS AND OPEN PROBLEMS, Timisoara, Romania, June 10-11, 2005
101
Figure 4. The Kaplan turbine hill chart. The operating points investigated are diplaced at constant
head and variable guide vane opening and its marked with red bullets.
3. ANALYSIS OF THE HYDRODYNAMIC
FIELD UPSTREAM THE RUNNER
As mentioned before, the spiral case and distributor
generate a suitable swirling flow further ingested by
the Kaplan runner. An important step in designing
and/or optimizing the runner blades is the determi-
nation of both axial and tangential velocity compo-
nents at runner inlet. Figure 5 shows the radial
distribution of both tangential (cu) and axial (cz)
velocity coefficients on the annular section upstream
the runner blades. Traditionally, the analytical
expression considered for cu corresponds to a free
vortex, while cz is considered constant. However,
these design assumptions are quite far from the
actual velocity field especially for partial loading
operating points.
Figure 5 shows the radial distribution of the radial
(cr denoted with black circles ), tangential (cu
labeled with red squares ) and axial (cz plotted
with green triangles ) velocity coefficients on the
annular section upstream the runner blades for all
operating points. One can observe the radial velocity
coefficient at all operating points investigated is
negligible relative to the other two velocity coefficients.
A significant modification of the tangential and axial
velocity coefficients are observed for the dimension-
less guide vane opening smaller than 0.8 ( 8 . 0
^
0
< a ).
In order to generate a parametric description of both
tangential and axial velocity components upstream
to the Kaplan runner an original analytical repre-
sentation of the swirling flow is developed by Resiga
et al. [Res04] and applied to the flow field upstream
to the Kaplan runner at best efficiency point, [Mun04].
A global quantitative description of the incom-
pressible swirling flow is provided by the swirl number
S as the axial momentum divided by the axial flux
of axial momentum, [Ste1995].

=

s
h
s
h
R
R
z
R
R
u z
dr rV R dr V V r S
2 2
/
(6)
Table 3. Swirl number for the operating points
investigated.
Operating
points
^
Q
^
0
a
S
P
1
0.4589 0.621 1.276
P
2
0.6453 0.744 1.178
P
3
0.8442 0.867 1.016
P
4
0.9767 0.990 0.879
P
5
1.2000 1.114 0.747
P
6
1.5139 1.240 0.636
Proceedings of the Workshop on VORTEX DOMINATED FLOWS. ACHIEVEMENTS AND OPEN PROBLEMS, Timisoara, Romania, June 10-11, 2005
102
The swirl number computed for the swirling flow
given by (6), with parameters from Table 2, is plotted
versus the dimensionless guide vane opening, Figure
6. One can see that for the investigated range of the
swirl number decreases as the dimensionless guide
vane opening increases, but nevertheless the variation
is quasi-linear.
Figure 5. The velocity coefficients on the reference section for all operating points investigated,
P
1
(upper left) P
6
(lower right).
Proceedings of the Workshop on VORTEX DOMINATED FLOWS. ACHIEVEMENTS AND OPEN PROBLEMS, Timisoara, Romania, June 10-11, 2005
103
Figure 7. The swirl number versus dimensionless guide vane opening.
4. CONCLUSIONS
The paper presents a methodology for computing
the full three-dimensional flow upstream the Kaplan
turbine runner. We have developed a methodology
for accurately describing the complex 3D geometry,
as well as for building a suitable mixed 3D mesh. A
significant step forward has been made to reduce the
time devoted to the problem definition (geometry
and mesh), in order to be able to apply the present
approach for design improvement and optimization.
The velocity component profiles upstream the
runner are presented for six operating points (variable
guide vane opening). It is shown that even at the
design point, the circumferential velocity profile
significantly departs from the simplified one (free
vortex distribution, i.e. r c
u
/ 1 ) usually considered
in preliminary design. This departure accentuates as
the discharge decreases, while the axial velocity
gradually develops a velocity deficit near the hub.
The swirling flow number is shown to vary quasi-
linearly with the guide vane opening in the investigated
operating range.
Further investigations will be aimed at a suitable
simple analytical representation of axial and circum-
ferential velocity profiles upstream the runner. Such
a synoptic parametric representation will allow a
convenient quantification of various geometrical
parameters on the swirling flow delivered to the
runner, for a wide range of operating points.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the support from the
National University Research Council grants (CNCSIS
A Consortium 33/2005). All numerical computations
have been performed at the Numerical Simulation
and Parallel Computing Laboratory of the Politehnica
University of Timisoara, National Center for
Engineering of Systems with Complex Fluids.
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