Numerical simulation with flow feature extraction of a propeller turbine unsteady rotor-stator interaction

We have seen many papers in the past few years reporting research on Francis hydraulic turbine flow. Interesting papers assessing the accuracy of the CFD numerical simulation were also presented for axial turbine draft tubes, as in the three Turbine 99 workshops. However, little knowledge is available on the flow taking place inside an axial turbine. This paper focuses on the unsteady rotor-stator interaction in a propeller axial turbine. The flow behaviour is analysed at different rotor and stator relative locations with numerical simulations using a commercial code and kappa-epsilon turbulence model. The: main goal is to study unsteady flow phenomena such as wake, separation, forces and pressure fluctuations in the propeller turbine. This investigation will help to design a series of flow measurements used in turn to improve future CFD simulations with realistic velocity profiles as boundary conditions.