An Experimental Study on Performance Analysis of Cross-Flow Water Turbine

Abstract

Renewable energy is the need of less developed countries and cross-flow turbine is a promising means of small scale hydropower production in locations where available head and discharge is comparatively low. The present work refers to experimental analysis of performance of cross-flow turbine for low head, low discharge sites. The work deals with the key parameters influencing the cross flow turbine efficiency. The efficiency of the cross-flow hydraulic turbine is dependent on several design parameters. These include runner outer diameter, breadth of the runner, thickness of water jet, number of blades, spacing of blades in the runner, radius of blades curvature, angle of attack, the first stage blade exit angle and angle between relative velocity of entering water jet and turbine outer periphery. The variation of efficiency and runner RPM with different angle of attack, nozzle tip elevation and nozzle tip distance from runner is analysed in the present work and selections have been made based on quantitative methods and experimental studies already carried out by different researchers.