Performance analysis of a runner for gravitational water vortex power plant

Abstract

Abstract Micro‐hydropower can be used to meet the needs of both isolated and rural communities for electricity. Due to its inexpensive initial investment, simple design, easy maintenance and low‐head utilisation, the gravitational water vortex power plant (GWVPP) has recently piqued interest. The findings of numerical work employing a numerical simulation and analytical approach for the GWVPP are presented in this study. To understand the influence of each on the efficiency of GWVPP, four parameters (speed, hub‐blade angle, number of blades and runner profile) were explored. Design‐Expert software was used to investigate the interplay of each parameter/factor in order to maximise the contribution of each. Design‐Optimal Expert's (custom) design tool was used to construct twenty‐four experimental runs. To calculate the system efficiency, these runs were simulated in commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software called Ansys CFX. The numerical results were in good agreement with the experimental results, which yielded R2 values of 0.9507 and 0.9603 for flat and curved profiles, respectively. Furthermore, the findings show that the chosen parameters have an impact on the GWVPP's efficiency via interaction as seen in response surface methodology (RSM). Furthermore, numerical analysis increased the curved blade profile runner's total efficiency by 3.65%. In comparison with the unoptimised scenarios, the efficiency of the flat runner profile increased by 1.69%.

Keywords

• blade profile
• CFD
• gravitation water vortex
• micro‐hydropower
• runner