Numerical Analysis of Erosive Wear on the Guide Vanes of a Francis Turbine

Abstract

The paper presents the numerical analysis of erosive wear on the guide vanes of a Francis turbine using CFD code. The 3-D turbulent particulate-liquid two-phase flow equations are employed in this study. The computing domain is discretized with a full three-dimensional mesh system of unstructured tetrahedral shapes. The finite volume method is used to solve the governing equations and the pressure-velocity coupling is handled via a Pressure Implicit with Splitting of Operators (PISO) procedure. Simulation results have shown that the volume fraction of sand at the top of the guide vanes is higher than others and the maximum of volume fraction of sand is at same location with the maximum of sand erosion rate density. The erosive wear is more serious at the top of the guide vanes.