Numerical analysis of an initial design of a counter-rotating pump-turbine
Paper in proceeding, 2021

Renewable sources of energy are on the rise and will continue to increase the coming decades. A common problem with the renewable energy sources is that they rely on effects which cannot be controlled, for instance the strength of the wind or the intensity of the sunlight. The ALPHEUS Horizon 2020 EU project has the aim to develop a low-head hydraulic pump-turbine which can work as a grid stabilising unit. This work presents numerical results of an initial hub-driven counter-rotating pump-turbine design within ALPHEUS. Computational fluid dynamics simulations are carried out in both prototype and model scale, for pump and turbine modes, and under steady-state and unsteady conditions. The results indicate that the initial design have a hydraulic efficiency of roughly 90 % in both modes and for a wide range of operating conditions. The unsteady simulations reveal a complex flow pattern downstream the two runners and frequency analysis show that the dominating pressure pulsations originates from the rotor dynamics. Given the promising high efficiency, this initial design makes an ideal platform to continue the work to optimise efficiency and transient operations further.

SAS

OpenFOAM

Hydropower

CFD

counter-rotating

pump-turbine

Author

Jonathan Fahlbeck

Chalmers, Mechanics and Maritime Sciences (M2), Fluid Dynamics

Håkan Nilsson

Chalmers, Mechanics and Maritime Sciences (M2), Fluid Dynamics

Saeed Salehi

Chalmers, Mechanics and Maritime Sciences (M2), Fluid Dynamics

Mehrdad Zangeneh

Advanced Design Technology Ltd

Melvin Joseph

Advanced Design Technology Ltd

IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science

17551307 (ISSN) 17551315 (eISSN)

Vol. 774 1 012066

30th IAHR Symposium on Hydraulic Machinery and Systems Online (Virtual conference)
Lausanne, Switzerland,

Augmenting grid stability through Low-head Pumped Hydro Energy Utilization & Storage (ALPHEUS)

European Commission (EC) (EC/H2020/883553), 2020-04-01 -- 2024-03-31.

Driving Forces

Sustainable development

Subject Categories

Water Engineering

Fluid Mechanics and Acoustics

Areas of Advance

Energy

Infrastructure

C3SE (Chalmers Centre for Computational Science and Engineering)

DOI

10.1088/1755-1315/774/1/012066

More information

Latest update

2/25/2022