Optimization of blade high-pressure edge to reduce pressure fluctuations in pump-turbine hump region

Hump characteristic is one of unique hydraulic instabilities of pump-turbines, which restricts the stable and safe operating range of the units. High-amplitude pressure fluctuations could be observed in the hump region, leading to hydraulic vibration of pumped storage power plants. To reduce the high-amplitude pressure fluctuation in the hump region, two optimization strategies for high-pressure edge shape of runner blades have been proposed. One is to increase the outlet angle near the shroud and the other increases the radius near the shroud. A large eddy simulation, which has been validated using performance and pressure fluctuation experiments, was performed to study the optimization effect. The valley point (0.65QBEP) in the hump region was selected for conducting time and frequency analyses under different optimization strategies. Analyses show that the pressure fluctuations were primarily caused by the rotation of three low-pressure regions at the circumference of the guide vanes. Both optimization strategies reduced the stall vortices formed in the three low-pressure regions and mitigated the rotating stall phenomenon. The influence of the runner-outlet geometries on pressure fluctuations is primarily reflected in the amplitude reduction of the dominant low frequency 0.2fn (where fn denotes the rotational speed) in the vaneless region and guide/stay vanes. Compared with strategies involving larger outlet angles near the shroud, this strategy of increasing the radius can more effectively reduce the amplitude of the dominant low frequency, and it makes the circumferential distribution of pressure fluctuations more uniform. These findings can help guide efforts in pump-turbine design optimization, which have been applied in a 700 m head pump-turbine design.