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REVIEW article

Front. Mech. Eng.
Sec. Tribology
Volume 10 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmech.2024.1526120

Review on experimental investigation of sediment erosion in hydraulic turbines

Provisionally accepted
  • 1 School of Engineering, Kathmandu University, Dhulikhel, Central Region, Nepal
  • 2 Kathmandu University, Dhulikhel, Nepal
  • 3 Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Sediment Erosion in turbine materials are caused due to various flow phenomena. The study of these phenomena helps to take suitable measures to minimize their effect on the turbine. Various experimental test rigs have been developed alongside the numerical analysis to study the erosion and predict the wear. In case of hydraulic turbines, erosion in Francis turbines is mostly seen at the guide vanes and runner and in case of Pelton turbines, the needle and the bucket regions are the most vulnerable components. Prediction of wear due to erosion in various parts of turbine is difficult as wear depends on the properties of flow, base material and sediment. Past studies have shown that the test rigs developed to investigate the erosion have considered reducing the number of independent parameters to simplify the experiment. The prediction of erosion rates and wear patters are conducted through both quantitative and qualitative methods. This paper aims to conduct a systematic review of experimental setups and the results of those studies. This work is expected to be useful in order to understand the vulnerable areas of erosion in hydraulic turbines, different mathematical relations developed to quantify erosion, as well as to know the contemporary in the sector of experimental investigation of sediment erosion.

    Keywords: Francis Turbine, Pelton turbine, Experimental test setups, Erosion models, Material wear

    Received: 11 Nov 2024; Accepted: 28 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Shrestha, Gurung, Chitrakar, Thapa, Neopane, Guo and Qian. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Sailesh Chitrakar, Kathmandu University, Dhulikhel, Nepal

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.