Numerical Modeling for Hydraulic Resonance in Hydropower Systems Using Impulse Response

Abstract

An effective numerical method to compute hydraulic resonance in pressurized piping of hydropower systems is presented. For this purpose, the impulse response method is used, i.e., a unit pressure impulse is introduced at the downstream waterway as an exciter. The method of characteristics is used to solve the governing equations for the hydraulic transient and to get the pressure response of the system in the time domain. The discrete Fourier transform is used to compute the frequency response of the system which gives the resonance frequencies in the hydropower plant system. To increase the accuracy of the results, unsteady friction is incorporated into the methodology. The influence of the unsteady friction, wave speed, and power on the pressure response diagram is investigated for the waterway of a multiunit hydropower plant which has been recently installed. Computed results agree very well with those obtained from the standard method of the characteristics.