The Effect of Midplane Guide Vanes in a Biplane Wells Turbine

Abstract

Guide vanes (GVs) improve the performance of a turbine in terms of efficiency, torque, or operating range. In this work, a concept of different orientations of GVs in between a two-row biplane wells turbine (BWT) was introduced and analyzed for the performance improvement. The fluid flow was simulated numerically with a commercial software ANSYS CFX 16.1. The Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations with the k-ω turbulence closure model were solved for different designs and flow conditions. For the base model, the results from simulation and experiments are in close agreement. Among the designs considered, the configuration, where the blades are in one line (zero circumferential angle between blades of two plane) and the midplane guide vane has concave side to the leading edge of the blade, performed relatively better. However, the performance was still less compared to the base model. The reason behind the reduction in performance from the base model is attributed to the blockage of flow and the change of flow path occurring due to the presence of the midplane GVs. The flow analysis of different cases and the comparison with the base model are presented in the current study.