CFD simulation of a micro hydro turbine

This paper presents a numerical analysis of the flow at a wide range of design and off-design operating conditions in a Specific axial micro hydro turbine. Micro hydro is a useful way of providing power to houses, workshops or villages that need an independent supply. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has become a cost effective tool for predicting detailed flow information in turbinespace to enable the selection of best design. The flow computation concentrates on a steady state and shear stress turbulence model. A comparison on the consequence of using different types of advection discritization and different turbulence models such as k-e model, shear stress model, Reynolds stress model and Explicit Algebraic Reynolds stress model is presented. The main results condense into set of efficiency and power curves of the modeling entire Agnew turbine (includes guide van, runner and draft tube) using the average blade geometry. The flow characteristics of the entire turbine are investigated and compared with experimental data at different measurement planes. The obtained results are in good agreement with the in site experiments, especially for the characteristic curve