Analysis of the vortices in the inner flow of reversible pump turbine with the new omega vortex identification method

• DOI: 10.1007/s42241-018-0046-1
• Publication Date: 2018-05-25T07:20:13Z
• Authors: Yu-ning Zhang; Kai-hua Liu; Jin-wei Li; Hai-zhen Xian; Xiao-ze Du
• Keywords: Mode (computer interface)

Reversible pump turbines are widely employed in the pumped hydro energy storage power plants. The frequent shifts among various operational modes for the reversible pump turbines pose various instability problems, e.g., the strong pressure fluctuation, the shaft swing, and the impeller damage. The instability is related to the vortices generated in the channels of the reversible pump turbines in the generating mode. In the present paper, a new omega vortex identification method is applied to the vortex analysis of the reversible pump turbines. The main advantage of the adopted algorithm is that it is physically independent of the selected values for the vortex identification in different working modes. Both weak and strong vortices can be identified by setting the same omega value in the whole passage of the reversible pump turbine. Five typical modes (turbine mode, runaway mode, turbine brake mode, zero-flow-rate mode and reverse pump mode) at several typical guide vane openings are selected for the analysis and comparisons. The differences between various modes and different guide vane openings are compared both qualitatively in terms of the vortex distributions and quantitatively in terms of the areas of the vortices in the reversible pump turbines. Our findings indicate that the new omega method could be successfully applied to the vortex identification in the reversible pump turbines.