@Article{ee.2026.088425,
AUTHOR = {Shurong Feng, Dongping Zeng, Xingyan Chen, Yanan Zhao, Fada Zhou},
TITLE = {Study on the Erosion Characteristics of Flow-Passage Components in the Jet Mechanism of an Impulse Turbine},
JOURNAL = {Energy Engineering},
VOLUME = {},
YEAR = {},
NUMBER = {},
PAGES = {{pages}},
URL = {http://www.techscience.com/energy/online/detail/27930},
ISSN = {1546-0118},
ABSTRACT = {Under China’s “Dual Carbon” strategy, which directs hydropower development toward the high-head regions of the southwest, impulse turbines have become the main turbine type for exploiting high-head hydropower resources. During the flood season, the high sediment loads carried by rivers in the southwest cause severe erosion of the jet mechanism, posing a significant threat to the safe and stable operation of the units. Taking a single jet mechanism of a six-nozzle impulse turbine at a hydropower station as the study object, a three-dimensional computational model covering the jet flow region was established. The renormalization group (RNG) <i>k</i>-<i>ε</i> turbulence model, the volume of fluid (VOF) multiphase model, and the Euler–Lagrange discrete phase model (DPM) were combined with the Oka erosion model to systematically investigate the effects of sediment particle diameter, volume fraction, and needle opening on the erosion characteristics of the nozzle and the jet needle. The results show that as the sediment particle diameter increases, the eroded area on the jet needle extends towards the shank, whereas erosion of the nozzle first increases, then drops sharply, and finally recovers gradually. The sediment volume fraction is positively correlated with the erosion rate, and this dependence is approximately exponential rather than linear; under the same operating conditions, the erosion of the jet needle is consistently greater than that of the nozzle. The needle opening is negatively correlated with the total erosion: erosion is most severe at small openings and decreases as the opening increases. When the needle opening increases from 0.23 to 0.63, the maximum erosion rate of the jet needle decreases by about 99.8%. This study identifies the high-erosion-risk regions and the main influencing factors in the jet mechanism of impulse turbines, providing a theoretical basis for the erosion-resistant design of the jet mechanism and for the formulation of operation and maintenance strategies for the units.},
DOI = {10.32604/ee.2026.088425}
}