Studies of Transient and Pulsating flows with application to Hydropower

Abstract: The rotational motion of a hydraulic turbine runner makes pulsating flows ubiquitous in different locations of the machine. The cyclic loading thus induced may generate large pressure forces acting periodically on both stationary and rotating parts. In addition to the presence of pulsating flows in a turbine runner, transient flows are encountered at an increasingly higher rate due to the continual installation of intermittent sources of renewable energy, such as wind and solar power. To mitigate the imbalance that these unpredictable sources induce on the frequency of the electrical grid, hydropower turbines are enforced to regulate their power production, and consequently flow rate, thus leaving them to operate under transient conditions. In terms of wear and fatigue, a startup or shutdown of a hydraulic turbine corresponds to 10-20 hours of steady state operation at the design point. Transient operation of a hydraulic machine can, however, also be used in favour for measuring the discharge through the turbine using the pressure-time method. A better understanding of pulsating and transient flows thus has the potential both to mitigate problems associated with them, and to increase the accuracy with which the turbine flow rate can be measured; two great merits for the hydropower community. In light of this observation, the following work constitutes a fundamental investigation of transient and pulsating flows performed in a straight pipe.Studies have been performed experimentally using particle image velocimetry, hot-film anemometry, laser Doppler velocimetry and pressure sensors.A chief finding is that the time-development of the wall shear stress and near-wall turbulence fields exhibit significant similarity between transient and pulsating flows, despite the different conditions of the mean flow. Whereas the former is initiated from a statistically steady state, the latter is constantly subjected to a time-varying forcing. Both types of unsteady flows have previously been investigated in detail; however, any potential similarity between them has, largely, been unexplored. An important implication of this finding, then, is that knowledge acquired in one type of unsteady flow can be used, if not interchangeably, at least as a guidance for the expected behaviour in the other type of flow. An example is the development of unsteady turbulence models. Another important finding is that the frictional losses arising during the late stage of a pressure-time flow rate measurement can be accurately modelled using an analytical laminar formulation of the wall shear stress, despite the bulk of the flow being turbulent. The formulation of the wall shear stress has potential to be further improved by incorporating a damping-function.