NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF THE FLOW IN THE DRAFT TUBE OF THE KAPLAN TURBINE

In this paper is presented the numerical simulation of the flow through a known Kaplan turbine geometry (Turbine-99) using the OpenFOAM program. Flow in a draft tube turbine is characterized as a complex turbulent flow with coexistence of different flow phenomena: separation, unsteadiness, swirling flow. The numerical simulation of the flow in the draft tube still remains a challenge. A classical test case was chosen: Turbine-99 workshops test case to make a simulation of the draft tube flow. The OpenFOAM software was used to perform this simulation. The main results are presented in this paper.