NUMERICAL STUDY OF FLOW THROUGH

TURBOMACHINE
CASCADE (S- BLADE)

Presented by
by
DIGVIJAY KUMAR SINGH
SUNIL KUMAR MEENA
Engineering
AMAN YADAV

Guided
Shri G.R.K.GUPTA Sir
Department of Mechanical
NITW

Objective

The objective of our project is to study the flow through axial flow
turbine pump cascade in detail by extensive numerical simulations
using ANSYS.

Particular attention is focused on the variation in aerodynamic

coefficients in the axial direction within the flow passage of the
cascade.

Motivation behind study

Energy crisis

Environmental issues

Economy point of view

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

R.S.

Madhusudan(1992) [1] conducted wind tunnel experiments on

symmetrical S-blades then extended the results to S-blades with cut off
edges. the wind tunnel Experiments were carried out at Reynolds
number of 4.5 x which is well above the critical Reynolds number 2 x
applicable to conventional single cambered aerofoils.
They showed that when the maximum the lift to drag ratio maximum at
positive angles of attack is found to increase as the maximum thickness
increased. However it is not the same for negative angles of attack. They
also studied the effect of location of maximum camber on the
aerodynamics of S-blades.

Tidal power plants

Tidal power, also calledtidal energy, is a form ofhydropowerthat

converts the energy obtained fromtidesinto useful forms of power,
mainly electricity.

Tidal power has potential for futureelectricity generation. tidal power

has traditionally suffered from relatively high cost and limited
availability of sites with sufficiently high tidal ranges or flow velocities.
However, many recenttechnological developments and improvements,
both in design and turbine technology has brought down economic and
environmental costs to competitive levels.

TYPES OF TIDAL POWER PLANTS

SINGLE
BASIN ,SINGLE
TIDE POWER
PLANT
Power
generation by
letting the
water flow from
the basin to sea
through
turbines during
ebb tide

SINGLE
BASIN ,DOUBLE
TIDE PLANT
The reversible
hydraulic
machine
generates
power during
both ebb and
high tides.

PAIRED BASIN
TIDAL POWER
PLANT

LINKED BASIN
TIDAL POWER
PLANT

Two basins
operates
alternatively
,the duration of
power
generation is
longer than
Single basin
,single tide
power plant

Power
generation by
water flowing
high basin to
low basin and
low basin to
sea during ebb
tide.

Aero foil Theory

Aerodynamics forces
DRAG
Drag is sum of the all aerodynamics or hydrodynamics forces in the
direction of the external fluid flow.

LIFT
Lift is the sum of all the dynamic forces on a body perpendicular to
the direction of the external flow approaching that body

Governing equations
Continuity equation

Momentum conservation

Energy conservation

Process followed
GEOMETRY

RESULTS

SOLUTION
STRATEGY

COMPUTATIONAL
GRID

BOUNDARY
CONDITION

Geometry: S - BLADES
The important advantage in using S blade for the axial flow reversible
pump turbine is that it offers moderately high and nearly equal
efficiencies in all 4 modes of operations the S blade has to be turned by
300 only for adjustment to any operation and in transition from 1 type of
operation to other for the same direction of flow is effected without
stopping the unit.

COMPUTATIONAL GRID

A chord of unit length is considered, the total length of the grid id of

24 chord length of which the entrance length is taken to be of 4 chord
lengths, the height of the grid considered is taken to be of 30 chord
lengths, 15 chord lengths on either side of the blade. An unstructured
grid is used to model the element because of its complex shape. We
have used triangular grid having nodes 50259 and 99612 elements

Grid independence test

The purpose of grid independence test is to determine minimum grid

resolution required to generate solution that is independent of the grid
used .starting with a coarse grid the number of cells was increased in
the region of interest until the solution from each grid was unchanged
for successive grid refinements.
for angle of attack 6
Number of
grid elements

Calculated cl
value

Experimental
value[1]

Error %

43256

-.6302

-.58

9.83

74512

-.6038

-.58

3.98

99612

-.58628

-.58

1.08

BOUNDARY CONDITIONS

The calculation domain is bounded by 3 boundary condition. The Inlet

boundary, The wall boundary and the Outlet boundary. At the inlet, a
fully developed flow is to be introduced. In fluent this is done by
considering it as the velocity inlet boundary condition. The far field at
the top and bottom of the S-Blade are modelled as a WALL Boundary
condition. NO slip condition is used to model the fluid flow at the wall.
At outlet we are taking pressure condition of zero-gauge pressure. And
Inlet velocity : 8m/s

SOLUTION STRATEGIES

A second order upwind discretization scheme was used for the

momentum equation while a first order upwind discretization
was used for the turbulence kinetic energy and turbulence
dissipation rate. The solver used is a coupled implicit solver and
the Spalart Allmaras Model is used for modelling turbulence

Turbulence model

A turbulence model is a semi empirical equation relating the fluctuating correlation to

mean flow variables with various constant provided from experimental investigations.

One
equation
model
Model is
designed
for
aerospac
e
applicatio
ns

Used
when
mesh
resolution
is fine.

Spal
art
Allm
aras
Mod
el
Gives
accurate
results
when
boundary
layers
subjected
to
adverse
pressure

Used for
solving
turbulent
kinematic
s
viscosity

Effective
for low
Reynolds
number

Results and conclusions:

Drag characteristics
Cd
0.14
0.12
0.12
0.1
0.09
0.08
Cd

0.06

0.06

0.05

0.04

0.04

0.03
0.02
0
-8

-6

-4

-2

0
Angle of attack
Cd

0.02

0.02

0.03

Lift characteristics
Cl
0.4
0.27
0.2
0.14
0
-8
cl

-6

-4

-2

-0.15

-0.2
-0.27
-0.39

-0.4
-0.49
-0.6

-0.59

-0.69
-0.8
Angle of attack
Cl

-0.01
4

PRESSURE CONTOURS

-8

VELOCITY CONTOURS
-8

-4

VELOCITY VECTORS:

Future plan

numerical investigations using FLUENT 14.5 is performed to study the effect of

A
aerodynamic coefficient like the coefficient of lift and drag. Numerical results are
validated with experimental results provided by R.S. MADHUSUDAN [1].work was
done in a wind tunnel at Reynolds numbers 4.5 x .

Our furthure work will be concentrated on getting the variation of properties on

other available symmetrical tidal pump turbine blades and having a comparative
study to find the optimum working conditions for better lift to drag ratios for
different working Reynolds numbers.

References

[1]. R.S.Madhusudan (1992) Flow Studies of S blade for fully

reversible axial flow turbine. Call no. 621.674(043) MAD. Acc. No.TH1708 Fluid Mechanics Laboratory , MED , IIT CHENNAI, India.

[2]. Wikipedia

[3].ANSYS Fluent Tutorial Guide 14.5

[4]. m-selig.ae.Illinois.edu/ads/cord

THANK YOU