[en] The draft tube design of a hydraulic turbine, particularly in low to medium head applications, plays an important role in determining the efficiency and power characteristics of the overall machine, since an important proportion of the available energy, being in kinetic form leaving the runner, needs to be recovered by the draft tube into static head. For large units, these efficiency and power characteristics can equate to large sums of money when considering the anticipated selling price of the energy produced over the machine's life-cycle. This same draft tube design is also a key factor in determining the overall civil costs of the powerhouse, primarily in excavation and concreting, which can amount to similar orders of magnitude as the price of the energy produced. Therefore, there is a need to find the optimum compromise between these two conflicting requirements. In this paper, an elaborate approach is described for dealing with this optimization problem. First, the draft tube's detailed geometry is defined as a function of a comprehensive set of design parameters (about 20 of which a subset is allowed to vary during the optimization process) and are then used in a non-uniform rational B-spline based geometric modeller to fully define the wetted surfaces geometry. Since the performance of the draft tube is largely governed by 3D viscous effects, such as boundary layer separation from the walls and swirling flow characteristics, which in turn governs the portion of the available kinetic energy which will be converted into pressure, a full 3D meshing and Navier-Stokes analysis is performed for each design. What makes this even more challenging is the fact that the inlet velocity distribution to the draft tube is governed by the runner at each of the various operating conditions that are of interest for the exploitation of the powerhouse. In order to determine these inlet conditions, a combined steady-state runner and an initial draft tube analysis, using a stage interface between them, must first be performed for each operating condition. Due to the computationally intensive nature of the evaluation process, the efficiency of the optimization algorithm becomes important. Therefore, a state-of-the-art hierarchical-metamodel-assisted evolutionary algorithm is used

[en] The removal of atmospheric methane by conversion to carbon dioxide has the potential to significantly reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) effect. Methane can be burned using conventional or catalytic combustion. Different types of reactors can be used for catalytic combustion, including the catalytic flow reversal reactor (CFRR) which has drawn much attention because auto-thermal operation can be achieved for lean low temperature feed. However, the control of CFRR is challenging. This study presented a method to predict the stationary state for the reactor. The method can be incorporated into a model predictive control (MPC) strategy as a terminal constant. The study involved a numerical simulation of the catalytic combustion of lean methane in a CFRR. In particular, the combustion of lean methane air mixtures in a CFRR was examined using a two dimensional heterogeneous continuum model, based on mole and energy balance equations for the solid (the inert and catalytic sections of the reactor) and the fluid phases. Several simulations were performed to study the reactor performance. The results showed the impact on the methane conversion and the maximum temperature in the reactor of key process parameters, such as the methane inlet concentration, the superficial gas velocity, the switching time, and the mass extraction rate. A simple empirical model was created to predict the maximum temperature and conversion of methane in the reactor at stationary state. Simulations revealed an improvement in control performance when adding a constraint for the maximum temperature. The improved results showed better performance in terms of heat extraction and smoothness of operation at low and high inlet concentrations. 23 refs., 4 tabs., 14 figs

[en] This paper presents a CFD-based methodology for the prediction of guide vane torque in hydraulic turbine distributors for synchronized and desynchronized configurations. A desynchronized configuration occurs when the opening angle of one guide vane differs from the opening angle of all other guide vanes, which may lead to a torque increase on neigbouring guide vanes. A fully automated numerical procedure is presented, that automates computations for a complete range of operation of a distributor. Results are validated against laboratory measurements.

[en] The aim of this work is to develop a numerical strategy for the simulation of two-phase flow in the context of chemical engineering applications. The finite element method has been chosen because of its flexibility to deal with complex geometries. One of the key points of two-phase flow simulation is to determine precisely the position of the interface between the two phases, which is an unknown of the problem. In this case, the interface can be tracked by the advection of the so-called color function. It is well known that the solution of the advection equation by most numerical schemes, including the Streamline Upwind Petrov-Galerkin (SUPG) method, may exhibit spurious oscillations. This work proposes an approach to filter out these oscillations by means of a change of variable that is efficient for both steady state and transient cases. First, the filtering technique will be presented in detail. Then, it will be applied to two-dimensional benchmark problems, namely, the advection skew to the mesh and the Zalesak's problems. (author)

[en] Nowadays, computational fluid dynamics is commonly used by design engineers to evaluate and compare losses in hydraulic components as it is less expensive and less time consuming than model tests. For that purpose, an automatic tool for casing and distributor analysis will be presented in this paper. An in-house mesh generator and a Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes equation solver using the standard k-ω SST turbulence model will be used to perform all computations. Two solvers based on the C++ OpenFOAM library will be used and compared to a commercial solver. The performance of the new fully coupled block solver developed by the University of Lucerne and Andritz will be compared to the standard 1.6ext segregated simpleFoam solver and to a commercial solver. In this study, relative comparisons of different geometries of casing and distributor will be performed. The present study is thus aimed at validating the block solver and the tool chain and providing design engineers with a faster and more reliable analysis tool that can be integrated into their design process

[en] Runaway speed is an important performance factor for the safe operation of hydropower systems. In turbine design, the manufacturers must conduct several model tests to calculate the accurate value of runaway speed for the complete range of operating conditions, which are expensive and time-consuming. To study runaway conditions, the application of numerical tools such as unsteady CFD simulations can help to better understand the complex flow physics during transient processes. However, unsteady simulations require significant computational effort to compute accurate values of runaway speed due to difficulties related to unsteady turbulent flow modelling and instabilities. The present study presents a robust methodology based on steady-state RANS flow simulations capable of predicting the runaway speed of a Francis turbine with an adequate level of accuracy and in a reasonable simulation time. The simulations are implemented using a commercial flow solver and an iterative algorithm that relies on a smooth relation between turbine torque and speed coefficient. The impact of friction has been considered when estimating turbine torque, in order to improve the accuracy. The results of this study show good agreement with experiments

[en] Steady state computations are routinely used by design engineers to evaluate and compare losses in hydraulic components. In the case of the draft tube diffuser, however, experiments have shown that while a significant number of operating conditions can adequately be evaluated using steady state computations, a few operating conditions require unsteady simulations to accurately evaluate losses. This paper presents a study that assesses the predictive capacity of a combination of steady and unsteady RANS numerical computations to predict draft tube losses over the complete range of operation of a Francis turbine. For the prediction of the draft tube performance using k-epsilon turbulence model, a methodology has been proposed to average global performance indicators of steady flow computation such as the pressure recovery factor over an adequate number of periods to obtain correct results. The methodology will be validated using two distinct flow solvers, CFX and OpenFOAM, and through a systematic comparison with experimental results obtained on the FLINDT model draft tube.

[en] The solubility and speciation of chromium in doped uranium oxide are measured in carefully controlled temperature and oxygen potential conditions using electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) and scanning electron spectroscopy (SEM). The examination of the samples by X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) provides evidence that (i) chromium is soluble in the UO₂ matrix under the +3 oxidation state only regardless of the sintering conditions which is in accordance with a soluble species of type CrO_3/2 and (ii) soluble chromium exhibits octahedral symmetry with 6 atoms of oxygen forming CrO₆ patterns in the UO₂ structure. In consistency with all available experimental information including previously published data, the solubility of chromium in UO₂ corresponding to each two-phase field with either Cr, CrO and Cr₂O₃ may be described in the ranges 1500 °C < T < 2000 °C and −460 < μ_O2 < −360 kJ/mol using the standard thermodynamic equations governing solubility equilibria. The characteristic parameters of the solubility laws in UO₂ for the three chromium phases are derived