Study on Reverse Running Pump Turbine (Radial Thrust and Runaway Speed Characteristics).

Abstract

Directly applying power generation technlogy for large-scale hydraulic turbines to a small hydraulic power generation system inevitably results in high costs. Consequently, technology specific to small hydraulic power generation must be developed. For example, a technology to use reverse running pump turbines, wherein mass-produced centrifugal pumps are operated in reverse rotation to obtain power, has been gaining popularity. The 1 st report gave the detailed test results on grasping the turbine characteristics and clarifying the internal flow. On this research, the radial thrust in the turbine mode and at the runaway speed condition was measured and this was evaluated comparing with the measuring data of distributions of circumferential velocity and static pressure at runner inlet and outlet, then the radial thrust tactor Kr was obtained. In addition to this, detailed experiments on the internal flow at the runaway speed condition were carried out to clarify the runaway speed characteristics, further the possibility of predicting the runaway speed characteristics was studied.