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Abstract: Among various microhydropower plants, gravitational water vortex power plants are emerging because of their simple installa-
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tion, reduced setup time, and minimal maintenance cost. The methodology and the selection of a suitable basin and turbine blade combi-
nations are yet to be explained by researchers. This study attempts to investigate the parameters that affect the formation and strength of a
vortex for efficient power generation using an artificially induced air-core vortex. Computational fluid dynamics based on a two-phase flow
analysis of the vortex formation at different basin parameters resulted in the selection of a suitable configuration of the basin. The basin was
then used in the blade analysis with different blade shapes at various load conditions. An experimental setup was also fabricated for the
validation of the numerical results, in which a close agreement was observed. The proposed methodology could be used to determine the plant
specifications and the blade size and shape for various flow rates and heads. The role of vortex height in determining the performance of the
gravitational water vortex turbine was explored. Among the four types of blades used in the study, cross-flow blades have shown the best
efficiency for the same discharge and head conditions. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)EY.1943-7897.0000558. © 2018 American Society of Civil
Engineers.
Author keywords: Water vortex; Turbine; Basin; Air core; Vortex height; Blade; Efficiency.
Fig. 1. (a) Reference basin model; and (b) blade profiles used in the study.
reference values, while all others were maintained constant and an- different authors (Li et al. 2008; Venukumar 2013; Dhakal et al.
alyzed for the tangential velocities of the water in the vortex core, 2015). The shapes include inverted conical blades (Profile 1),
vortex height, and the quality of air core ranging from 0 (for no air cross-flow blades (Profile 2), curved rectangular blades (Profile 3),
core) to 1 (for full air core). Aside from varying the geometric and twisted blades (Profile 4), as shown in Fig. 1(b). The dimen-
parameters, the flow conditions were also varied to analyze the effect sions of the selected blades are completely dependent on the vortex
of flow velocities on vortex formation. Parameters including basin formed in a particular basin. The vortex profile was analyzed, re-
diameter (0.4–0.8 m), outlet to basin diameter ratio (0.13–0.17), sulting in the designing of the blades. In a vortex, the layers of fluid
basin height to diameter ratio (0.5–1.5), inlet channel width ratio flow were spiral and had tangential velocities greater than the radial
(0.1–0.5), inlet channel depth ratio (0.1–0.5), and inlet velocity and axial velocities with the optimum position for the blade instal-
(0.1–0.6 m=s) were analyzed to investigate their effect on vortex lation at 35% of the vortex height from the bottom of the vortex
and tangential velocities. Table 1 shows a summary of the cases that (Dhakal et al. 2014). In view of the vortex profile of each blade,
were analyzed in this study. The obtained results enabled a basin to the outer diameter of the blades was selected such that it should not
generate a full air-core vortex, along with a considerable increase in be less than the minimum distance between the water surfaces on
the kinetic head using the aforementioned methodology (Table 2). both sides of the blade, at a position of 35% from the bottom of the
The results of the basin analysis and selection of the most suitable basin. This arrangement enabled the water to transfer maximum
configuration have already been reported by Chattha et al. (2017). kinetic energy to the blades for power generation. This arrangement
caused complexity when the vortex height decreased with the an-
Selection of Blades gular velocity of the rotating blades.
The basin was divided into two domains to enable rotation of the
Four blade profiles were analyzed for the power production and blades in the basin. An outer stationary domain was referred to as
vortex distortion in the basin of a GWVT using ANSYS CFX. the basin domain, and a central cylindrical rotating domain, which
The selection of the blade profiles was based on the research of contained the blades, was referred to as the blade domain. The po-
sition of the blade walls inside the cylindrical domain was selected
Table 2. Optimized values of basin parameters
to maintain the height of the blade at 100 mm above the bottom of
the basin and to ensure the submergence of the blade in the vortex at
Basin parameter Optimized value (mm) all vortex heights.
Basin diameter 500
Basin height 500
Outlet diameter 80 Mathematical Modeling and Governing Equations
Inlet width 100 The free-surface air-core vortex was formed as a result of
Inlet depth 100
the interface between air and water (Li et al. 2008;
tional domain et al. 2017). When the water height reduces, the friction offered
by the basin floor is more significant. The combined effects of these
X
N
modifications resulted in the formation of a full air core with a high
ρp ¼ ðαi ρi Þ ð11Þ
i¼1
vortex height. Moreover, the optimized basin resulted in 85.5% in-
crease in the tangential velocity than the initial or reference basin
X
N mainly because of the formation of the air core. Fig. 2(b) shows the
up ¼ ðαi ui Þ ð12Þ streamlines and the water–air interface in the optimized basin. The
i¼1 vortex that formed in this basin was fully developed and extended
from the top of the water surface down to the bottom outlet of the
where subscript p refers to phases (air and water). The provided
basin. Fig. 2(c) shows the separation between air and water in the
momentum and mass conservation Eqs. (1)–(4) were modified
form of volume fractions of air and water. The upper region rep-
by using the volume fraction equations for density and velocity
resents air, whereas the lower region represents the water present
across the computational domain. Atmospheric pressure and con-
inside the basin. The detailed results of the basin analysis have al-
ditions were applied at the top surface and the bottom drain of the
ready been reported in Chattha et al. (2017).
basin. The inlet was introduced with normal velocity of αair ¼ 0
and αwater ¼ 1, whereas the outlet was exposed to atmospheric
air with αair ¼ 1 and αwater ¼ 0, where αair is the volume fraction Blade Analysis
of air and αwater is the volume fraction of water. These input param-
eters were valid for both cases, namely, with and without turbine For the blade analysis, initialization of the rotating domain is re-
blades. These conditions can be physically understood by consid- quired as practiced by many researchers in the modeling and sim-
ering the turbine when it is not operational. Only water was present ulation of water turbines, such as Sammartano et al. (2013),
at the basin inlet. Consequently, air was only present at the outlet Khosrowpanah et al. (1988), and Andrade et al. (2011). In the first
and at the upper opening of the basin. The basin walls were set as step of the domain initialization, the domains were identified as
rough walls with sand-grain roughness of 0.045, which was the static or rotating. In the second stage the rotating domain was as-
sand-grain roughness of the steel sheet used for the experimental signed with the rotational speed of the runner based on the exper-
model. imental results as an input parameter. The same approach has been
followed in the present study to conduct the blade analysis. The
effects of blade placement in the selected basin were analyzed in
Results and Discussion of the Computational Study the second phase of the computational part of the study. Fig. 3(a)
shows the decrease in vortex height when the blades in the basin
rotate at 50 rpm. Fig. 3(b) shows the velocity streamlines formed in
Basin Analysis the presence of blades. The insertion of blades in the basin caused
The reference basin was analyzed in the initial phase of the com- distortion in the fluid flow. This phenomenon resulted in the de-
putational part of the study. The vortex did not form properly even crease in vortex height due to the decrease in the tangential velocity
at a mass flow rate of 5.5 kg=s because of the absence of an air of the fluid and a corresponding increase in the radial and axial
core, which is expected to generate small power [Fig. 2(a)]. Thus, velocities. The same can be observed in Fig. 3(c), which shows
in search of a suitable basin configuration, the basin geometric the volume fraction of water in the basin in the presence of blades.
parameters were varied until a suitable vortex was formed with The top surface in the basin and inlet channel represents the water–
the air core present throughout the vortex height. This basin was air interface and clearly shows the decrease in vortex height with
more suitable for a power generation that uses a mass flow rate the rotation of blades, thus showing a clear distinction from
of 4.5 kg=s. The basin was optimized by narrowing the inlet chan- Fig. 2(c), which had no presence of blades.
nel to smoothen the entry of water into the basin, increasing the The blades placed in the path of the flowing fluid produced
height of the inlet channel to allow the formation of a vortex with a rotational effect that was strongly influenced by the angular
high height, and increasing the size of the bottom outlet. The effect velocity. At small angular velocities, all blades experienced higher
of inlet channel width was investigated by using the dimensionless torques, which tend to decrease nonlinearly with the increase in
ratio of inlet channel width with the basin diameter ranging from angular velocities (Fig. 4). The nonlinearity of the graphs reflects
0.1 to 0.5 (Table 1). An increase in this ratio increases the mass flow the impact of variation in the vortex height caused by the blades at
into the basin, which causes the water height to rise until overflow various angular velocities. The cross-flow blades (i.e., Profile 2)
from the upper walls of the basin occurs. The analysis based on the exhibited the largest values of torque at any rotational speed among
variation of vortex height and gain in tangential velocity as reported all blade profiles. The shape of the cross-flow blades caused the
in Chattha et al. (2017) shows that the optimum ratio of inlet width high torque magnitudes, which resulted in lesser distortion in the
Fig. 2. Velocity streamlines and fluid flow (a) in the initial or reference geometry; and (b) in the selected basin. (c) Volume fractions of air and water in
the selected basin.
vortex profile and the extraction of the maximum kinetic energy of than any other blade, thereby resulting in lesser torques. The
the flowing water. The torque on the curved blades (i.e., Profile 3) twisted blades yielded higher torques than the conical blades be-
was the least in all rotational speeds because water was allowed to cause their contact area was greater than the latter.
strike the blades and move smoothly toward the center of the vortex The water flowed tangentially when no blades were installed
core. Consequently, the curved blades distorted the vortex more inside the vortex and resulted in a particular height of the vortex.
Fig. 3. Effect of the presence of rotating blades in the selected basin on (a) vortex formation; (b) velocity streamlines; and (c) water volume fraction.
The placement of the blade distorted the vortex profile and in- decreased and the tangential velocity of the water increased. Thus,
creased the radial and axial components of velocity while decreas- higher angular velocities resulted in a higher vortex height com-
ing the tangential components. This decrease in tangential velocity pared with lower angular velocities. Different blades distorted
caused a decrease in the height of the vortex. When the angular the vortex to a different value, thereby decreasing its height depend-
velocity of the blades increased, the distortion in the vortex profile ing on the flows of the fluid in the presence of these blades (Fig. 5).
the midrange rotational speeds for a given head and flow rate,
which has been the case for all the hydraulic turbines (Dixon
and Hall 2014). The values of efficiencies for cross-flow blades
were higher than other blades because the torques generated on
these blades are maximal. The higher efficiency of the cross-flow
blades may be attributed to the vortex-retaining capability of the
blades, which ultimately resulted in higher torques. The curved
blades were least efficient because their shape poorly extracted en-
ergy from the vortex and caused a considerable reduction in the
vortex height.
Chattha et al. (2017) showed that the height of a water inlet
above the vortex surface does not affect the vortex formation.
Therefore, the height of the vortex may be considered as the head
Fig. 5. Effect of turbine rotational speed (rpm) on vortex height. of the water and the efficiency can also be plotted in terms of the
height of the vortex rather than the total head of the inlet channel
[Fig. 6(b)]. When the efficiencies of the four blades, with respect to
the vortex height, were plotted against rotational speeds, the cross-
flow blades still yielded the best efficiencies. However, at lower
rotational speeds, the curved blades yielded better efficiencies than
their conical-type counter parts. A comparison of the two efficiency
graphs [Figs. 6(a and b)] found that no major difference was ob-
served in the trends of the efficiency curves. The difference lies in
the magnitudes of the efficiency and the location of the best effi-
ciency point. The magnitude difference is due to the difference in
the actual head and vortex height. For the case of conical and
curved blades, the best efficiency point is shifted toward the lower
rotational speeds, showing that they are more suitable for small
rotational speeds.
Experimental Results
The increase in the resisting torque on the coupler caused an in-
crease in the load on the turbine. When the load on the turbine in- of a GWVT, then all blades have comparable efficiencies for small
creased, the angular velocity of the blades decreased, causing a torques.
change in the efficiency of the plant. The efficiency increased until
the vortex distorted significantly due to flow disturbance. Fig. 8(a)
Comparison of Experimental and Simulation Results
shows that the optimum torque, in which the highest efficiency is
obtained, lies halfway between no force on the blade and the maxi- The angular velocity of the blades decreased when the force applied
mum force to stop the blade. The performance trend of the blade on the blades was increased. The sudden decrease in the angular
was maintained in the case of numerical simulation. Cross-flow velocity was due to the decrease in vortex height, which implies
blades outclassed other profiles in terms of efficiency. By contrast, the decrease in vortex strength. This decrease became drastic when
the curved blades were the least performer. The results recommend the torques significantly increased. The results obtained from
the use of cross-flow-type blades in a GWVT, with an experimental ANSYS CFX simulations showed close resemblance to the results
efficiency approaching 50%. obtained experimentally. Furthermore, an error that ranges from 6
The difference among the performances of the four blade pro- to 15% was observed in different cases. Fig. 9(a) indicates the dif-
files was small when the efficiency of blades was plotted using the ference observed between numerical and experimental results in
vortex height as the total head. In this case, the cross-flow blades one of the blades. The power obtained numerically was slightly
were more efficient than other blades with increased efficiencies in higher than the power obtained experimentally because mechanical
all cases. Although the efficiency difference was negligible for all frictional forces were not considered in the numerical analysis.
blade profiles with small values of the applied torques, the differ- Moreover, at higher rotational speeds, the centrifugal forces caused
ence became significant when higher resisting torques were applied an increase in the height of the vortex that resulted in higher torques
on the blades [Fig. 8(b)]. The highest efficiency increase was ob- on the blades. Furthermore, the use of rotational speed as an input
served for the case of conical blades and the least efficiency was parameter resulted in higher numerical results. However, the blade
observed in the case of cross-flow blades. Table 3 shows the differ- performance trend shown in the experimental results was similar to
ence between the numerical and the experimental results in the ef- the results in the numerical simulation. Cross-flow blades had the
ficiency for all the blades at their best efficiency points. The results highest power output among any other types of blades, which
highlight the importance of vortex height in measuring the perfor- shows their vortex-retaining capability. By contrast, the curved
mance of GWVT. If the vortex height was maintained in the basin blades had the least power output among all cases because they
Fig. 9. Comparison of numerical and experimental results in all blades based on (a) output power; and (b) vortex heights.
distorted the vortex. The results recommend the use of cross- causing great frictional loss in the water velocity. Water entry
flow-type blades in a GWVT with an experimental efficiency ap- above the upper surface of the vortex does not result in any pos-
proaching 50%. itive output.
Fig. 9(b) shows that the increase in torques applied on the blades The finalized basin configuration has been used in the blade
decreases angular velocity, which correspondingly decreases the analysis with different blade shapes at various load conditions.
vortex height. The decrease in vortex height caused by cross-flow The blade analysis suggests that cross-flow blades are the most suit-
blades was minimal because they maintain the water motion along able blades for GWVT. Vortex height has been proven to be an
the vortex flow direction. The decrease in vortex height was maxi- important measure of the performance of GWVT. One of the lim-
mal in the case of the curved blades because they changed the itations of this study is that the weight of the blades is not consid-
direction of the water striking the blade edges from tangential to ered in the numerical simulation, which increases the difference
radial. The difference between the numerical and experimental between the experimental and numerical results with the increase
results increased at higher angular velocities because of the meth- in blade weight. The height of the vortex decreases when the load
odology used for the numerical analysis of the blade. In the simu- on the turbine is increased. Based on the study, the proposed meth-
lations, the blade rotation was an input parameter. At higher angular odology may also be used to determine the plant specifications and
velocities, the centrifugal forces came into play and the blades blade size and shape for various flow rates and heads.
tended to cause an outward flow of the water, thereby reducing
the radial velocity and increasing the vortex height.
Appendix. Mesh Sensitivity Analysis
Conclusions Vortex height was calculated using three different inlet velocities
to conduct mesh sensitivity analysis of the basin as shown in
GWVT is an efficient turbine that can be used as a microhydro Fig. 10(a). Similarly, mesh sensitivity analysis for four different
turbine to generate power. Based on the findings of the study, a blade profiles was conducted by computing torque at fixed rota-
two-phase CFD-based study is always important for the analysis tional speed of 110 rpm as shown in Fig. 10(b). For further analysis
of a GWVT. The configuration with a fully developed air core of the present study, the combination of mesh elements was se-
throughout the vortex height is the most suitable for the basin. lected based on the fact that both vortex height and torque tend
When a basin with a large diameter is used, the vortex height de- to remain unchanged despite further increase in the number of mesh
creases and almost all the water glides along the floor of the basin, elements.