Application of transient CFD-procedures for S-shape computation in pump-turbines with and without FSI

CFD has entered the product development process in hydraulic machines since more than three decades. Beside the actual design process, in which the most appropriate geometry for a certain task is iteratively sought, several steady-state simulations and related analyses are performed with the help of CFD. Basic transient CFD-analysis is becoming more and more routine for rotor-stator interaction assessment, but in general unsteady CFD is still not standard due to the large computational effort. Especially for FSI simulations, where mesh motion is involved, a considerable amount of computational time is necessary for the mesh handling and deformation as well as the related unsteady flow field resolution. Therefore this kind of CFD computations are still unusual and mostly performed during trouble-shooting analysis rather than in the standard development process, i.e. in order to understand what went wrong instead of preventing failure or even better to increase the available knowledge. In this paper the application of an efficient and particularly robust algorithm for fast computations with moving mesh is presented for the analysis of transient effects encountered during highly dynamic procedures in the operation of a pump-turbine, like runaway at fixed GV position and load-rejection with GV motion imposed as one-way FSI. In both cases the computations extend through the S-shape of the machine in the turbine-brake and reverse pump domain, showing that such exotic computations can be perform on a more regular base, even if quite time consuming. Beside the presentation of the procedure and global results, some highlights in the encountered flow-physics are also given.