Analysis Of the Effect of Flow Rate and Speed on Four Blade Tubular Water Bulb-Turbine Efficiency Using Numerical Flow Simulation

Abstract

At the smallest scale, hydropower or pico-hydro can be produced by utilizing water flow at the piping system. This paper discusses about the performance of a water bulb-turbine in a water piping water system using the Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) method. This study aims to analyze the effect of flow rate and speed on the efficiency of water bulb-turbine using Solidworks Flow Simulation 2016. The propeller turbine design used in this study has 4 blades and a blade angle of 200, and the static bulb using with a ratio of 0.6 to the pipe diameter. The parameter in flow rate applied in this study is between 7 and 13 L/s and for speed parameter between 100 and 1700 rpm. The final result of this study indicates that the efficiency of the water bulb-turbine is a directly proportional increase of flow rate and the highest efficiency reaches at flow rate 13 L/s and 1300 rpm.