Abstract
The pumped hydro energy storage is the most effective way to store large-scale electricity and has been widely used in the world. As the key equipment in the pumped hydro energy storage, it is significant and urgent to improve the performance and operation stability of the pump-turbine. In this study, the effect of runners with and without splitter blade on the performances and inner flow characteristics of a pump-turbine in pump mode was analyzed by the method of numerical calculation. The results suggest that larger tangential velocity at runner outlet and higher pressure at the trailing edge of pressure side in splitter blade runner scheme contribute to higher head. The area of backflow at runner outlet, the highest values of entropy generation rate, and vorticity distribution in splitter blade runner scheme are well smaller than those in prototype runner without splitter blade, which is conducive to improving model performance.
Highlights
Clean energies, such as wind energy, solar energy, nuclear energy, and hydropower, are starting to play a significant role in the process of social development due to the progressive exhaustion of fossil fuels and the severe environment pollution
The results suggest that larger tangential velocity at runner outlet and higher pressure at the trailing edge of pressure side in splitter blade runner scheme contribute to higher head
The effects of adopting runner without and with splitter blade on the performance of the pump-turbine in pump mode were investigated by means of the numerical simulations
Summary
Clean energies, such as wind energy, solar energy, nuclear energy, and hydropower, are starting to play a significant role in the process of social development due to the progressive exhaustion of fossil fuels (coal and petroleum, etc.) and the severe environment pollution. The splitter blade runner, a special structure runner with long and short blades placed alternately in the circumference direction, was proposed in centrifugal pumps [13, 14] and compressors [15, 16] It has advantages of improving hydraulic performance and reducing the blade load, the appearance of secondary flow, pressure fluctuation, vibration, and so on. Tezuka [18] proposed a design method of splitter blade with the blade inlet equal and outlet unequal pitch arrangement By using this method, two different specific-speed runners in Azumi and Karmagawa pumped storage power plants were designed, installed, and verified to have high reliability and better hydraulic performance.
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