Vortex Cascade Features of Turbulent Flow in Hydro-Turbine Blade Passage with Complex Geometry

Abstract

A large-eddy simulation of three-dimensional turbulent flow for a hydro-turbine in the transitional process of decreasing load from rated power to no-load has been implemented by using ANSYS-Fluent in this paper. The survival space occupied by different scale flow structures for the different guide vane opening degrees was well captured. The flow characteristics in the transitional process were obtained. Different forms of the channel vortex were studied. The features of the vortex cascade and dissipation of the turbulent energy in blade passage were analyzed. The results show that the scales of the vortex structures have a large change in the transitional process of rejecting load, and the vortex distributions in the blade passage are significantly distinguished. The survival space of the different scale eddies in the blade passage is closely related to the scales of the vortex. The survival volume ratio of the adjacent scale vortex in the runner is about 1.2–1.6. The turbulent kinetic energy and eddy viscosity increase rapidly along the blade passage with the small-scale eddies going up, which implies that a dissipating path for the energy in the blade passage is formed.