Bowl bladed hydrokinetic turbine with additional steering blade numerical modeling

Abstract

Bowl bladed kinetic turbine has a low performance. This is a simple turbine, easy to make, easy to install and inexpensive. Kinetic turbines are made specifically for rural areas which may be far from technology facilities. The reason why this kind of turbine is still being used is to meet the electric needs of rural areas. Research on this bowl bladed kinetic turbine is still often done, although not too much. There have been many efforts made to improve turbine kinetic performance. This simulation study was conducted to compare the conventional bowl bladed kinetic turbine with the bowl bladed kinetic turbine with an additional steering blade, to see whether there is an increase in turbine performance.The performance of a kinetic turbine can be seen from the amount of pressure or momentum that occurs between two blades.The simulation carried out is to review the pressure that occurs in four sequential blades that experience an initial jet water flow. A review of this pressure is carried out at every 5° movement of the turbine wheel, starts from a=45° to a=45°, so there will be nine pairs comparison result of the bowl bladed kinetic turbine performance.On the conventional bowl bladed kinetic turbine, it can be seen that the water flow enters the turbine area, after pushing the first blade, flows straight out to the turbine outlet area. So it is estimated that there is potential water energy lost.From the bowl bladed kinetic turbine simulation with the steering blade, it can be seen that there is an increase in pressure on the blades. The water flow that had left the turbine area can provide an additional pressure on the rest of the turbine blade. By plotting the pressure value of the simulation result, it is clear that there is an increase of turbine performance after attached with a steering blade.