Transient simulation of reversible pump turbine during pump mode's starting up

Abstract

A pumped storage power station is an electric power system that utilizes low-peak electricity to pump water into a high-altitude reservoir and releases water to generate electricity during high-peak electricity demand. The pump mode's starting up impacts the operational stability and lifespan of the reversible pump turbine (RPT). Especially, the pressure pulsation signal during the pump mode's starting up is a typical non-stationary signal in RPT, which is an important basis for judging the operation status of the unit. In this study, the time-varying boundary conditions are used to calculate the pressure fluctuation and flow pattern evolution for a prototype RPT. This paper analyzed and compared the time-frequency characteristics of pressure fluctuations by continuous wavelet transform (CWT) and by variational mode decomposition (VMD). And the internal flow of RPT was also visualized using entropy generation theory. In this study, the effect of the penalty coefficient on the VMD algorithm is investigated in the form of a signal-noise ratio (SNR). With the increase of the penalty coefficient, the SNR of the signal gradually decreases and tends to be stable. Several modal components with strong physical significance and center frequency separation are obtained. Influenced by the boundary conditions that change with time, the pressure fluctuation presents a five-stage trend of “descending - ascending - descending - ascending - descending”. There are three main types of high-flow energy dissipation (FED) areas during this process of the RPT. The research and analysis in this paper will provide a good reference for the stable and safe operation of RPT and pumped storage power stations.