Cavitation identification in a hydraulic bulb turbine based on vibration and pressure fluctuation measurements

Abstract

Cavitation can lead to reduced efficiency, increased vibration and noise in hydraulic turbines. Accurate and rapid identification of cavitation states in a turbine is important. In this work, a test system has been constructed for a hydraulic bulb turbine, to synchronously obtain cavitation images on runner blades, vibrations on both the runner hub and the runner chamber, and pressure fluctuations on the draft tube of the turbine at different cavitation conditions. The multifractal characteristics of the collected signals obtained by using the multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis method have been analysed and compared in detail. It is found that the multifractal characteristics of the vibrations and pressure fluctuations depend strongly on the cavitation state. The multifractal strength of the pressure fluctuations in the draft tube is stronger than that of the vibrations on the runner, induced by cavitation. Furthermore, some multifractal parameters of vibrations and pressure fluctuations have been extracted and used for cavitation state identification in the turbine, which is important for safe operation of a turbine.