Transient simulation on closure of wicket gates in a high-head Francis-type reversible turbine operating in pump mode

To solve the problem of grid instabilities, regulation in the Pumped Hydro Energy Storage (PHES) plants should quickly respond to the variation of electricity produced by unpredictable renewable energy. In this paper, a power reduction scenario applied to a pump turbine of a PHES is simulated considering the transient closure process of wicket gate. A novel dynamic mesh technique is applied to simulate the rotation of wicket gate vanes from best efficiency point to shutdown condition. Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) turbulence model is utilized to capture complex unsteady flow and the water weak compressibility effect is considered in the transient simulation. Flow rate, torque, power and pressure are analysed by the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) and Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT) methods. The results illustrate the delay between the performance parameters flow rate and power and the wicket gate opening angle. The closure of wicket gates affects the flow characteristics downstream the wicket gates greatly, causing intensive pressure fluctuations. The magnitude of pressure fluctuations downstream the wicket gate becomes the highest with the wicket gate closure of about 60%. Aside the blade passage frequency, a low frequency occurs, with the appearance of unsteady flow in pump turbine. Moreover, strong torque pulsations occur on the pin of the wicket vane when the percentage of closure is between 60% and 80%, with peaks much higher than that at the best efficiency point. The transient results can provide meaningful reference to the regulation law of wicket gate for safe operation of the pump turbine.