Numerical Simulation-Driven Hydrodynamic Optimization for Rehabilitation & Upgrading of Hydro Turbines

The rehabilitation and upgrading of hydro turbines for hydro power plants remain constantly growing in the world, especially in China. An optimization design methodology adapted to rehabilitation and upgrading projects of hydropower plant by means of digital design and performances estimation based on 3D viscous flow numerical simulations of the complete hydro turbine passage at multi-operating conditions is presented in this paper. The proposed methodology enables to take the constraints and objectives specific to such a design problem which most of the main dimensions of the existing turbine differ significantly from the dimensions of a new design into account. The use of multi-points performances estimation based on 3D viscous flow numerical simulations can guide us to optimize the components to be renovated and keep good match in hydraulic performances with the existed for a larger operating range, thus reducing R&D cost for rehabilitation and upgrading projects. A validation of the methodology on rehabilitation project of YINXIUWAN hydro power plant will be presented in the paper, it shows that performances of the retrofitted hydro turbine can be reliably estimated based on numerical tests, and the numerical tests proposed in the paper can substitute for the traditional model tests in the retrofit of a hydro turbine, and the presented optimization design procedure can be as a target oriented and cost effective development in rehabilitation and upgrading projects of hydro power plant.