Influence of Splitter Angle Variations on the Efficiency and Power of Pelton Turbine

Gerard Antonini Duma, Luther Sule, Andi Besse Riyani Indah, Cristian Baru

Abstract

The Pelton turbine is a type of impulse turbine engineered to exploit the potential energy of high-pressure, low-flow water. A pivotal component of the Pelton turbine bucket is the splitter, which serves as a separator at the core of the bucket, bifurcating the water-jet flow into two symmetrical segments. The splitter modulates the distribution and trajectory of the water flow after it impacts the bucket surface. This study examined the effects of splitter-angle variations on the efficiency and power of a Pelton turbine. The turbine was designed with 20 ABS blades fabricated using 3D printing technology and assessed under splitter-angle configurations of 15°, 25°, 50°, 75°, 100°, and 125°, as well as in the absence of a splitter. Four discharges (0.000692; 0.000663; 0.000642 and 0.000623 m³/s) and various loads, starting from 0.2 to 3.0 kg, with a range of 0.2, were tested. The findings indicate that the splitter angle profoundly affects turbine efficiency, with the 50° angle producing the highest efficiency and power of 89% and 24 W, respectively, at a load of 2.0 kg, a turbine rotation of 285 rpm, and a torque of 0.8044 Nm, with a discharge of 0.000692 m³/s. The experimental and simulation results emphasize the importance of optimizing the splitter geometry to improve energy conversion efficiency and overall turbine performance.

Full Text:

PDF

References

U. Auyeskhan, T. Lee, Y. Park, et al., “Design study for performance improvement of a hybrid pico Pelton turbine and its additive manufacturing using a laser powder bed fusion method,” Int. J. Interact. Des. Manuf., vol. 18, pp. 107–117, 2024, doi: 10.1007/s12008-023-01396-4. 2. E. Brun and J. Thorp, Compression Machinery for Oil and Gas, USA: Elsevier, 2025, ISBN: 9780128146835. 3. A. Chukwuneke, J. L. Chukwuneke, and C. H. Achebe, “Modelling the effect of head and bucket splitter angle on the power output of a Pelton turbine,” Int. J. Eng. Appl. Sci., vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 1–8, 2014. 4. R. Cordebela, W. O. I. Bohorquez, and J. Campos, “Efficiency assessment in a Pelton wheel as a function of the bucket exit angle at several rotational speeds,” Iran. J. Sci. Technol. Trans. Mech. Eng., 2023, doi: 10.1007/s40997-023-00620-6. 5. J. Decaix and C. Münch-Alligné, “Geometry, mesh and numerical scheme influencing the simulation of a Pelton jet with the OpenFOAM toolbox,” Energies, vol. 15, no. 19, pp. 7451, 2022, doi: 10.3390/en15197451. 6. J. A. S. Del Rio and A. R. Sánchez, “Numerical simulation of different splitter angles of a Pelton bucket to increase the power generated by the Pelton wheel,” Int. J. Integr. Eng., vol. 15, no. 7, pp. 1–10, 2023, doi: 10.30880/ijie.2023.15.07.001. 7. L. Sule and N. Salam, Water Energy and Pump, Makassar: Unhas Press, 2024, ISBN: 978-979-530-477-7. 8. G. Ibarra, A. Ladino, F. Larrahondo, and S. Rodriguez, “Optimization and reconstruction of Pelton buckets based on statistical techniques, artificial neural networks and CFD modelling,” Renew. Energy, 2024, doi: 10.1016/j.renene.2024.120933. 9. M. Idris, M. Weriono, I. Dalil, J. Hermawan, A. J. Zulfikar, and M. Y. Yuhazri, “Water flow simulation in a Pelton turbine bucket with variable bucket dimensions using computational fluid dynamic,” JTTM J. Terap. Tek. Mesin, vol. 4, no. 2, 2023, doi: 10.37373/jttm.v4i2.633. 10. R. K. Karre, K. Srinivas, K. Mannan, B. Prashanth, and C. R. Prasad, “A review on hydro power plants and turbines,” in Int. Conf. Res. Sci., Eng. Technol., 2022, doi: 10.1063/5.0081709. 11. F. A. Khan, A. Kumar, T. Staubli, A. Abbas, and L. Devinar, “Control of a Pelton turbine with partial jet cutting driven by a cut-in jet deflector,” Renew. Energy, 2024, doi: 10.1016/j.renene.2024.122063. 12. T. Lee, U. Auyeskhan, D.-H. Kim, and N. Kim, “Design for additive manufacturing of pico Pelton turbine: Simulation and experimental study,” in Proc. 2022 Spring Conf. Korean Soc. Precis. Eng., 2022. 13. A. Lipej and B. Popovski, “Numerical aided design of Pelton nozzle jet deflector,” J. Mech. Energy Eng., vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 149–156, 2021, doi: 10.30464/jmee.2021.5.2.149. 14. D. Mafruddin, Impuls Turbine, Lampung: Laduny Press, 2020, ISBN: 978-623-7829-33-1. 15. A. T. Manedjeu and P. B. Sob, “Design and modelling of Pelton wheel bucket to improve its efficiency,” SSRN Electron. J., 2024, doi: 10.2139/ssrn.4672245. 16. A. Neeraj, P. Anup, S. Anushka, and S. Nitesh, “Design of Pelton turbine and bucket surface using non-uniform rational basis spline and its analysis with computational fluid dynamics,” J. Inst. Eng., vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 1–10, Apr. 2021. 17. P. Rupa and C. L. Mahesh, “Numerical modelling of deflection of the flow at the bucket splitter of Pelton turbine,” in Proc. 12th IOE Grad. Conf., 2022. 18. A. R. Sánchez and J. A. S. Del Rio, “Simulation of four different splitter angles of a Pelton bucket,” Int. J. Mech. Prod. Eng. Res. Dev., vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 14601–14608, 2020. 19. K. Sun, R. Ji, J. Zhang, Y. Li, and B. Wang, “Investigations on the hydrodynamic interference of the multi-rotor vertical axis tidal current turbine,” Renew. Energy, vol. 169, pp. 752–764, 2021. 20. Y. Xiao, Z. Liu, Q. Liang, J. Liu, J. Zhang, Y. Zhu, X. Li, and C. Gu, “The interaction between bucket number and performance of a Pelton turbine,” Energy, vol. 263, p. 129646, 2023, doi: 10.1016/j.energy.2023.129646. 21. L. Zain, D. S. Fahreza, P. M. Bagus, A. A. Michael, and B. S. Doan, “Experimental study of small hydro turbine propeller performance with a variety of blade angles of attack,” SINERGI, vol. 26, no. 3, pp. 273–278, Oct. 2022.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.20961/mekanika.v25i1.108686

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.