PUBLISHED ON August 21, 2013   ELECTRONICS

Pelton turbine - working and design aspect

Pelton turbines or pelton wheels are work on high head and low flow rate. It is used for power extraction. In this article I will explain to you about the working principle and design aspects of the Pelton turbine. Pelton wheel turbine is a hydraulic turbine, and its primary application is in the hydropower plant for producing the electricity.

Pelton turbine – The basic working principle

Working principle of a pelton turbine is a simple. You can refer Fig below when a high speed water jet is injected through a nozzle, it hits on a bucket of the Pelton wheel. It induces an impulsive force. This force makes the turbine rotate. The rotating shaft runs a generator and produces the electricity. Please refer to the figure below, we will understand the basic working of the pelton turbine and their components. Let’s start from penstock, is a pipeline from the main water source, water reservoir. High speed water is coming from the penstock. You can see this high speed water jet is injected through the nozzle. And it hit the bucket of the wheel. It induces an impulsive force. This force makes the turbine rotate. The rotating shaft runs a generator and produces the electricity.

In short, the Pelton turbine transforms kinetic energy of a water jet to rotational energy. Now let's discuss about the governing of the pelton turbine.

What is the governing of the Pelton wheel turbine?

Demand of power may fluctuate over time. A governing mechanism which controls position of the spear head meets this requirement. With lowering power demand the spear head at water inlet nozzle is moved in(refer Fig 2). So that water flow rate is reduced. If power demand increases spear head is moved out and this will increase the flow rate. Following figure illustrates this mechanism. The first position of the spear head produces a low flow rate, while the second position produces a high flow rate.

So in pelton turbine synchronization between power demand and power supply is met by controlling the water flow rate. The same technique is used in other types hydroelectric turbines. If the power supply is more than the demand, then the turbine will run over speed otherwise in under speed. But such a governing mechanism in turn will balance the power supply and demand and will make sure that the turbine rotates at a constant specified RPM. This speed should also conforms to the power supply frequency. So this mechanism acts as a speed governing mechanism of pelton wheel.

Number of buckets in pelton wheel

One of the most important parameter of pelton turbine design is number of buckets on the disk. If number of buckets are inadequate, obiously this will result in loss in water jet. That means when one bucket departs from the water jet next bucket may not get engaged with the jet. This will result in loss in water jet for a small time duration, thus sudden drop in turbi ne efficiency. Following figure illustrates what happens when the number of buckets are lowered. With lowering number of buckets at some point of operation, complete water jet might be lost (refer Fig 3). So there should be an appropriate number of buckets, which will make sure that no water is lost (refer Fig 1).

The pelton bucket – design and features

Most vital component of pelton wheel is its bucket. Buckets are casted as single solid piece, in order to avoid fatigue failure. You can note that force acting on the turbine bucket is not constant with time. If you follow one particular bucket, it will have high force for a small time duration (at the time of jet impingement) after that a larger idle period where no jet interaction takes place. So the force acting on the bucket is also not constant. It varies with the time but it is having a cyclic nature. If bucket were made using pieces by welding attachment such cyclic fore will easily lead to premature fatigue failure.

Water jet is split into 2 equal components with help of a splitter. The special shape of bucket makes the jet turn almost 180 degree. This produces an impulsive force on bucket. Force so produced can easily be derived from Newton’s 2nd law of motion. Blade outlet angle close to 180 degree is usually used in order to maximize impulsive force. A cut is provided on bottom portion of buckets. This makes sure that water jet will not get interfered by other incoming buckets.

Pelton - An impulse turbine

Since the water jet is always open to atmosphere, inlet and exit pressure of water jet will be same and will be same as atmospheric pressure. However absolute velocity of fluid will have huge drop from inlet to exit of bucket. This kinetic energy drop is the maximum energy the bucket can absorb. So it is clear that Pelton turbine gains mechanical energy purely due to change in kinetic energy of jet, not due to pressure energy change. Which means Pelton turbine is a pure impulse machine.

Impulse force produced by water jet is high when jet is having high velocity. Water stored at high altitude can easily produce high jet velocity. This is the reason why Pelton turbine is most suitable for operation, when water is stored at high altitude. You can easily understand why there is a nozzle fitted at water jet injection portion. Nozzle will increase velocity of jet further, thus will aid in effective production of impulse force.

Extracting maximum power from water jet

Pelton turbine design is always aimed at extracting maximum power from water jet, or maximizing efficiency. Power extracted by the bucket, P is product of jet impulse force and bucket velocity.

So power extraction is maximum when product of impulsive force and bucket velocity is maximum. Let’s consider 2 different operating conditions.

1. Buckets are held stationary

If Pelton wheel buckets are held stationary, there will be a huge impulse force produced. But power extraction will be zero since buckets are not moving.

2. Bucket speed same as jest speed

If buckets are moving with same speed of jet, water jet won’t be able to hit the bucket. This will lead to zero impulse force. Again power extraction will be zero.

In short, power extraction is zero both at zero bucket speed and when bucket speed is same as jet speed. So with respect to jet to bucket speed ratio, power extraction will vary with as shown below.

It is clear from the above graph that optimum power extraction happens in between. It can be shown using Euler’s turbo machinery equation that maximum power extraction happens when bucket speed is half the jet velocity. So it is always desirable to operate Pelton wheel at this condition. Pelton turbines can give efficiency as high as 90 %, at optimum working conditions.

I hope you have learned how pelton turbine works and its different designs and features. Thanks for reading!