ARTIGOS TÉCNICOS TECHNICAL ARTICLE

6 AGRADECIMENTOS
Os autores agradecem ao CERPCH e à UNIFEI que propiciaram
os meios para o desenvolvimento deste equipamento e à Alstom os
meios para simulação do modelo computacional.
7 REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS
ALENCAR H. S, (2007), “Estudo Numérico da Termo-
Aerodinâmica de Câmaras de Combustão para Turbinas a Gás:
Aplicação ao caso de Micro Turbinas”, Universidade Federal de
Itajubá, Itajubá-MG, p.151.
ALENCAR H. S, (1999), “Análise do Comportamento de
Turbinas Hidráulicas para Operar com Rotação Variável”,
Universidade Federal de Itajubá, Itajubá-MG, p.210.
BALARIM C. R., TARGA L. A.,FILHO J. S. V., ANDRADE A. G.,
WIECHETECK G. K. (2004) , “Custo de Bombas Funcionando como
Turbinas em Microcentrais Hidrelétricas”, Artigo Técnico, Eng.
Agric, Jaboticabal, p.219-225.
NETO H. J., ALENCAR H. S., BERNARDES M. E. C., SILVA F. G. B.
(2008), “Modelagem e Simulação do Comportamento de um
Válvula de Fluxo Hidráulica com Uso de Ferramenta de
Hidroinformática”Ver. Tecnol. Fortalaleza, v.29, n. 2, p 224-232.
SANTOS P. C, (2009), “Estudo de um Sistema de Controle de
Vazão Utilizando a Dinâmica de fluido Computacional: Metodologia
e Prática”, Universidade Federal de Itajubá, Itajubá-MG, p.123.
VIANA A. N. C. (1987), “Comportamento de Bombas
Centrífugas Funcionando como Turbinas Hidráulicas”, Dissertação
de Mestrado, EFEI, Itajubá/ MG, pp. 95.
VIANA A. N. C., “Bombas de Fluxo Operando como Turbinas.Por
que Usá-las?”, Artigo Técnico, EFEI, Itajubá/ MG, pp.13.
VIANA A. N. C., NOGUEIRA F. J. H.(1990), “Bombas Centrífugas
Funcionando como Turbinas”, Trabalho de Pesquisa, Departamento
de Mecânica, EFEI, Itajubá/ MG.
THE STUDY OF ACTIVE FLOW CONTROL IN FRANCIS TURBINES
Roland Wunderer1
Rudolf Schilling2
ABSTRACT
Hydro Turbines are being operated on very high levels of efficiency, characterised by peak efficiencies beyond 95%. Thus, the margin
of further increasing the efficiencies in the best point of operation and in the vicinity of it is very small. However, considering operating
points under part load and over load conditions the efficiency drop may be very high, especially for turbines with higher specific speeds.
This phenomenon is combined with a strong increase of pressure pulsations decreasing the life endurance limit of turbines.
To reduce the time-dependent pressure loading of Francis turbine runners several possibilities of active flow control have been studied
and the most promising solution is to generate guide vane blades pitching with variable frequencies and amplitudes. To investigate this
fluid flow problem in detail and to work out the optimum combination of frequency and amplitude for a given test case, a LES code has
been developed and applied to solve this problem.
The paper shows simulation results for a 2D tandem cascade for different relevant parameters. Considering the tandem cascade flow,
the overall losses may be reduced considerably by a pitching inlet cascade. Depending on the frequency and amplitude of the pitching pro-
files the amplitude of the pressure pulsations may also be diminished as well as their characteristic frequencies may be shifted towards
lower or higher values. Thus, a resonance effect may be avoided by modifying the pitching frequency.
Unsteady flow computations are carried out considering a model Francis Turbine having a specific speed nq = 85 l/min, to study the in-
fluence of pitching guide vanes with respect to frequency and amplitude on the efficiency as well as on the pressure amplitudes.

Key words: active flow control, hydraulic turbines, detached eddy simulation, computational fluid dynamics, hybrid differencing, boun-
dary layer shielding

INTRODUCTION An efficient 3D transient Navier-Stokes code, based on a Finite

Francis turbines are characterized by peak efficiencies beyond
95%. This is only valid in the best point of operation. However in
part and over load the efficiency drops significantly. Furthermore
pressure pulsations can be observed in this operation points. In
large Francis turbines the pulsations can cause very large resulting
forces on the runner blades. These forces can impair the life endur-
ance of the runner blades and therefore damage them in the long
run. Damage may also occur, if the fluctuations stimulate the tur-
bine with its eigenfrequency. To avoid damages and expensive re-
pairs, the turbines are switched off in the case of extremely water
levels.
For both effects, the drop of efficiency and the pressure pulsa-
tions, the reason is a highly transitional flow in the rotor. At the lead-
10 ing edges of the rotor blades a strong separation can occur, which is
the main cause for the transitional flow character.
Active flow control can reduce this separation and therefore in-
crease the efficiency and modify the pressure pulsations, regard-
ing amplitude reduction and frequency shifting. By pitching the
guide vanes periodically, a time varying flow onto the runner
Volume formulation, was developed. The linearized system of mo-
mentum- and continuity equations is solved by a modified version
of the PISO pressure correction scheme, which original formulation
was described by ISSA [2]. With this code several simulations were
done, to investigate the physical details of the transient flow and
the effects of the active flow control in a turbine under part load con-
ditions.
The need to simulate pitching airfoils required to handle mesh
deformation. Therefore the space conservation law, see
FERZIGER, PERIC [1], which modifies the fluxes in the Navier-
Stokes equations in the case of mesh deformation, was imple-
mented. For efficiently and accurately mesh deformation, an algo-
rithm has been developed. It is based on an algebraic formulation
and works without solving any extra partial differential equations.
The algorithm was optimized for the problem of pitching airfoils
and the validation regarding mesh quality showed, that it was supe-
rior to Finite Volume and Finite Element approaches for this kind of
problem. The algorithm is described in WUNDERER [14].

www.cerpch.org.br blades is created which affects the separation in the desired way. DES models

www.cerpch.org.br
For the investigation of these phenomenons numerical simula-
tions were done. Therefore a hybrid turbulence modelling, namely
Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) was applied. Some modifications
regarding the underlying DES-model and the handling of the
discretization of the advection terms were done. Thus it was man-
aged to apply DES for the flow in turbo-machines.
NUMERICAL MODEL
CFD code
Preliminary simulations showed that the physical effects, that
should be studied, could not be resolved with a Reynolds Averaged
Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulation, WUNDERER [15]. The desired
accuracy can be achieved with a Large Eddy Simulation (LES). How-
ever classical LES needs to resolve the wall near domain very accu-
rately. The resolution is dependent on the Reynolds number of the
flow. PIOMELLI, BALARAS [6] showed, that the number of cells, re-
quired to resolve just the inner part of the boundary layer is ~Re1.8.
The time step has to be adapted accordingly. In technical flows of

1 Institute of Fluid Mechanics - Institute of Fluid Mechanics - Germany - e-mail: wunderer@flm.mw.tum.de

2 Institute of Fluid Mechanics - Institute of Fluid Mechanics - Germany - e-mail: schilling@flm.mw.tum.de

26 27
 ARTIGOS TÉCNICOS
the kind studied here, Reynolds numbers of ~106 are examined.
The required computing power is far-off today´s available re-
sources. There fore it is necessary to model the boundary layer.
Most promising for that task is the DES, which uses a hybrid tur-
bulence model acting as a RANS model in the boundary domain and
a LES subgrid scale (SGS) model outside it. The switching between
the two modes is done by the model itself. Some DES where vali-
dated e.g. in WUNDERER [15]. For the following calculations the
SST-DES model was chosen. The equations for that model are
shown e.g.in MENTER,KUNTZ[4] or WUNDERER, SCHILLING [16].
Boundary layer shielding
The major drawback of the original DES formulation is the grid
dependency of the mechanism for switching between the LES and
the RANS mode of the model. To achieve good results the grid has
to be adapted exactly to the given flow. To avoid that problem sev-
eral shielding mechanisms for the boundary layer have been devel-
oped, see eg. MENTER, KUNTZ[4] or SPALART et al.[8]. Independ-
ent of the grid quality these mechanisms should prevent the model
from switching to the LES mode in domains where the RANS mode
should be active, especially in the wall near domains. In
WUNDERER, SCHILLING [16] an adaptation of the shielding for the
SST-DES model was done. The formulation of the DES-limiter
FDES for the model is:
The advantage of this new formulation is its applicability for in-
ternal turbulent flows, as in turbo-machines. It ensures, that the
RANS mode of the model is activated just inside the boundary
layer, whereas the LES mode is activated outside it. The common
method of shielding the SST-model activates the RANS mode in a
much too large flow domain. A comparison of both methods can be
seen in Fig. 1 and 2. More details are shown in WUNDERER, SCHIL-
LING [16].
Fig.1: Model mode for the flow in a blade row, with the
new shielding, regarding equation 1.
Fig. 2: Model mode for the flow in a blade row, with the shielding,
proposed by MENTER, KUNTZ [4].
Hybrid differencing
For LES or LES-like simulations as DES or SAS, see MENTER,
EGOROV [5], the discretization scheme should be of central-
differencing type (CDS). This is due to the fact that central-
differencing schemes are less dissipative than upwind schemes
(UDS) and thus full advantage of the grid provided can be taken.
28
However CDS is less stable than UDS. Among other things this can
be caused by nonuniform grids or too high cell Reynolds numbers.
To combine the advantages of both schemes, TRAVIN et al.
[11] developed a hybrid differencing scheme that blends the fluxes
calculated both by a CDS and a UDS. The blending function
switches between a UDS near the walls and in the domains where
the turbulence intensity as well as the transient character of the
flow is low and a CDS elsewhere. The blending of the fluxes F is
done in the following way:
The blending function s is defined as follows:
The calculation of the turbulent length scale differs slightly
from the original formulation of TRAVIN et al. [11] and STRELETS
[9]. This type of blending works well for flows around bodies, e.g.
in aerodynamic applications. These applications are characterized
by a laminar or low turbulent flow, that separates somewhere at a
body and then changes to a turbulent flow. For these kinds of prob-
lems the DES was primarily developed.
The flow in turbo-machines is characterized by a different char-
acter. The flow is already turbulent when it enters the domain of in-
terest, e.g. the runner. Therefore the above blending does a bad
job, as the high values of turbulent kinetic energy in the whole flow
domain prevents the blending mechanism from switching in the
UDS mode. In Fig. 3 vectors of the relative velocity, plotted on a
plane section through a turbine runner are visualized. The flow be-
fore the blades is of steady state type in the rotating system. At the
leading edges of the blades the flow separates and forms a large
vortex. The mesh for the simulation was designed in a way to
achieve good mesh quality within the rotor domain. The mesh-cells
before the blades are comparatively large, whereas the cells be-
hind the blades are very flat. In Fig. 5 the values of the blending fac-
tor s, calculated by the above equations 3, are shown. It can be
seen that s is close to zero, what means, that the discretization is
blended to CDS in nearly the whole flow domain. As the flow before
Fig. 3: Vectors of the relative velocity, plotted
on a plane section through a radial turbine.
TECHNICAL ARTICLE
the blades is nearly of steady state type and the mesh after the
blades is of poor quality for LES, in these regions UDS should be
blended.
For that reason a modifaction of the above blending function
was developed. The blending is done in a way that regions with a
high transient flow character are preferred for the CDS. Addition-
ally the influence of the grid is taken into account, what means,
that mesh regions of poor quality are discretized by UDS. In the fol-
lowing equations tmin and tmax are representative convection
times of a cell. This can e.g. be the minimum and maximum time of
the flow needed to pass a cell. The modified blending is described
bellow. In Fig. 4 it can be seen that the blending works as desired.
The flow within the runner is dominated by CDS, whereas outside
the runner there is added some amount of UDS. The new blending
function is defined as follows:
Fig.4: Blending factor for the discretization, calculated by the new
formula, according to equations 4.
Fig. 5: Blending factor for the discretization, calculated by equations 3,
TRAVIN et al. [11].
Simplified model of a turbine
For studying the basic effects an abstract model of a radial tur-
bine was chosen. It consists of two blade rows, the first corre-
sponding to the guide vanes and the second corresponding to the
runner. It is equivalent to a radial turbine with a very large diame-
ter. As the two bladings are fixed, the flow corresponds to the rela-
tive flow in a radial turbine. The front blades are turned about -10°
and the back blades about 37°. The model can be seen in Fig. 6.
The mesh consists of ~1×106 cells. A mesh study, which can be
seen in WUNDERER [15], showed that this resolution was ade-
quate for the simulations. The flow analysis has been done on three
sections:Section 0 was placed upstream the first blade row, section
1 between the two rows and section 2 downstream the second row.
Fig. 6: Geometry of the simplified turbine model.
RESULTS
Fixed guide vanes
The unsteady character of the flow can be seen in Fig. 15,
where the streamlines plotted on a plane section are shown. A se-
quence of the separation process for the case with fixed front
blades can be seen there. In Fig. 7 the time varying forces, normal
to one of the back blades are shown. Clearly the fluctuations of the
forces, which are due to the unsteadiness of the flow, can be ob-
served. The time dependent values of the normal forces are within
±30% of the mean force. These fluctuations are the main cause for
the damage of a turbine blade in the long time run.
The frequency analysis of the time row shows two characteris-
tic peeks, s. Fig. 8. The first one at k = 3.125, which is the fre-
quency of the separation, the second one at k = 6.25, which is the
first harmonic. The reduced frequency k calculates as follows:
The separation is not comparable with the separation at a sin-
gle airfoil, as it is described e.g. in WUNDERER [15]. This is due to
the fact, that there is the effect of additional blades on the flow.
First the blades bound the size of the separation to a maximum
value. Secondly the separation affects the flow in a positive way, as
it transports fluid downwards by its rotation. This amplifies the di-
rection change of the flow and leads to a nearly blade congruent
flow in this case, as can be seen in Fig. 15.
Pitching guide vanes
To study the dynamic behaviour, the front blades where pitched
with various frequencies and amplitudes. In Fig. 9 the effect on the
total pressure drop from section 0 to section 2 is shown. A positive
effect on the pressure drop can be seen for various frequencies and
amplitudes. The pressure drop is reduced mostly at k = 3.125. This
corresponds to the frequency of the vortex-separation at the lea-
ding edges of the blades. As can be seen, the total pressure drop is
reduced about 22%.
29
 ARTIGOS TÉCNICOS
Fig. 7: Dimensionless normal forces on a back blade,
arrangement with fixed guide vanes.
Fig. 8: Frequency analysis of the dimensionless normal force fluctuations,
arrangement with fixed guide vanes.
Fig. 9: Total pressure drop, from section 0 to 2, relative to the
case with fixed guide vanes.
Fig. 10: Net drop of total pressure, from section 0 to 2, relative to the
case with fixed guide vanes.
30
Since the hydraulic efficiency of a turbine is proportional to
1/Dpt, the reduction of the total pressure drop results in a higher ef-
ficiency. The sequences in Fig. 15 show the reason for this behav-
iour. It can be seen that in the pitching case there is still a separa-
tion, which is more regular and somewhat smaller than in the static
case. This means that there is a larger area for the fluid to pass
through, which results in a lesser total pressure drop.
For reducing the losses in the blade row, there is to put energy
into the system by pitching the front blades. If this energy input is
taken into account, the energy balance has to show a higher net en-
ergy drop, than the one in Fig. 9. The net energy drop is the total
pressure drop additionally the energy needed for pitching the front
blades. The net energy drop is shown in Fig. 10.
The net values are similar to the ones of Fig. 9, what means,
that the energy for pitching the front blades is small compared to
the reduction of the losses. For the optimum values, k = 3.125 and
Da = 2.75°, a reduction of the net energy drop of about 20% can be
achieved for this case.
In Fig. 11 the variation of the flow turning from section 0 to sec-
tion 2, described by DUy, is shown. For all configurations the varia-
tion is smaller than 5%. This small value is due to the fact, that
there is almost a blade congruent flow off the trailing edge, in the
case of fixed front blades. Therefore the turning of the flow cannot
be further improved. The reason for this behaviour is the separa-
tion at the upper side of the blade which transports fluid down-
wards by its rotation. The velocity component Uy corresponds to
the peripheral velocity cu in a radial turbine. As the hydraulic effi-
Fig.12: Dimensionless normal forces on a blade of the second blade row,
ciency of a turbine is proportional to D(rcu), it can be expected that
the effect of the velocity variation is minor compared to the reduc-
tion of the pressure drop and the influence on the efficiency is domi-
nated by the total pressure drop.
Another positive effect can be seen in Fig. 12. Compared to Fig.
7 the deviation from the mean force is reduced. This concerns both
the maximum and the mean deviation. In this time series the re-
duction is about 25% of the maximum deviation.
There can also be observed an effect on the frequency of the
separation and therefore on the frequency of the blade normal
forces in the second row. Fig. 13 and 14 show that the dominant fre-
quency of the blade normal forces can be shifted to the pitching-
frequency of the guide vanes. This effect could be utilized in cases
where the frequency of the pressure fluctuations is about the
eigenfrequency of a turbine, what could cause seriously damage.
CONCLUSIONS
The simulations of the simplified turbine model showed that
guide vanes, pitching with appropriate frequencies and ampli-
tudes, could reduce the total pressure drop in radial turbines. In ex-
treme part and overload conditions this could increase the effi-
ciency of the turbine considerably.
Furthermore a positive effect regarding the pressure fluctua-
tions can be noticed. The fluctuations of the blade forces can be re-
duced, which would result in a remarkable increase of the lifespan
of turbines.
It is also possible to shift the frequency of the pressure fluctua-
tions towards the frequency of the pitching guide vanes. This can
be useful in operation points where the pressure fluctuations could
TECHNICAL ARTICLE
stimulate the turbine at its eigen frequency.
In the meantime simulations have been started to study the
time-dependent flow in the stage of the Francis Turbine FT 85, hav-
ing pitching guide vanes. The already existing results show, that
the described effects can be applied to real turbines.
REFERENCES
[1] FERZIGER, J.H. ; PERIC, M.: 2002, Computational Methods
for Fluid Dynamic, Springer, Berlin Heidelberg
[2] ISSA, R.I.: 1986, Solution of implicitly discretized fluid flow
equations by operator-splitting, Journal of Computational Physics,
62, p. 40-65
Fig.11: Flow turning DUy, from section 0 to 2, relative to the [3] LEDER, A.: 1992, Abgelöste Strömungen Physikalische
value of the fixed case.
Grundlagen, Vieweg, Braunschweig/Wiesbaden
[4] MENTER, F. R.; KUNTZ, M.: 2004, Development and appli-
cation of a zonal DES turbulence model for CFX-5, ANSYS CFX
Validation Report
[5] MENTER, F. R. ; EGOROV, Y.: 2005, A scale-adaptive simula-
tion model using two-equation models, AIAA Paper 2005-1095
[6] PIOMELLI, U.; BALARAS, E.: 2002, Wall-Layer Models for
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349-374
[7] SPALART, P. R. ; JOU, W. H. ; STRELETS, M. ; ALLMARAS, S.
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Z. Liu Eds., Greyden Press, Columbus, OH, USA
with pitching guide vanes. [8] SPALART, P. R.; DECK, S.; SHUR, M. L.; SQUIRES, K. D. ;
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eddy simulation, resistant to ambiguous grid densities, Theor.
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Detached Eddy Simulation of Massively Separated Flows, AIAA
Paper 2001-0879
[10] TELIONIS, D. P.: 1981, Unsteady viscous flows, Springer,
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[11] TRAVIN, A. ; SHUR, M. ; STRELETS, M. ; SPALART, P.R.:
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Colloquium on LES of Complex transitional and turbulent flows,
Munich, Oct. 2000
[12] WERDECKER, F.: 2000, Strömungswechselwirkung an ei-
Fig.13: Frequency analysis of the normal force for k=1.56,
nem Tandemgitter mit schwingender Vorleitschaufel, Diss.,
compared to the fixed case.
Technische Universität München
[13] WUNDERER, R.: 2006, Aktive Strömungsbeeinflussung,
Zwischenbericht zum Projekt KW21
[14] WUNDERER, R.: 2007, Algebraischer Algorithmus für die
Netzdeformierung, internal report, Institute of Fluid Mechanics,
Technische Universität München
[15] WUNDERER, R.: 2007, Aktive Strömungsbeeinflussung,
Abschlußberichtbericht zum Projekt KW21
[16] WUNDERER, R. ; SCHILLING, R.: 2008, Numerical
Simulation Of Active Flow Control In Hydro Turbines, ISROMAC-12
: 12th International symposium on transport phenomena and dyna-
mics of rotating machinery
Fig.14: Frequency analysis of the normal force for k=6.25,
compared to the fixed case.
31