Francis turbine

The Francis turbine is a type of water turbine. It is an inward-flow reaction turbine that combines
radial and axial flow concepts. Francis turbines are the most common water turbine in use today,
and can achieve over 95% efficiency.[1]

Francis inlet scroll at the Grand

Coulee Dam

Side-view cutaway of a vertical

Francis turbine. Here water enters
horizontally in a spiral-shaped pipe
(spiral case) wrapped around the
outside of the turbine's rotating runner
and exits vertically down through the
center of the turbine.

The process of arriving at the modern Francis runner design took from 1848 to approximately
1920.[1] It became known as the Francis turbine around 1920, being named after British-
American engineer James B. Francis who in 1848 created a new turbine design.[1]

Francis turbines are primarily used for producing electricity. The power output of the electric
generators generally ranges from just a few kilowatts up to 1000 MW, though mini-hydro
installations may be lower. The best performance is seen when the head height is between 100–
300 metres (330–980 ft).[2] Penstock diameters are between 1 and 10 m (3.3 and 32.8 ft). The
speeds of different turbine units range from 70 to 1000 rpm. A wicket gate around the outside of
the turbine's rotating runner controls the rate of water flow through the turbine for different
power production rates. Francis turbines are usually mounted with a vertical shaft, to isolate
water from the generator. This also facilitates installation and maintenance.[3]
Development

Francis turbine parts

Pawtucket Gatehouse in Lowell,

Massachusetts; site of the first
Francis turbine

Francis Runner, Grand Coulee Dam

 A Francis turbine at Raccoon
Mountain Pumped-Storage Plant

Water wheels of different types have been used for more than 1,000 years to power mills of all
types, but they were relatively inefficient. Nineteenth-century efficiency improvements of water
turbines allowed them to replace nearly all water wheel applications and compete with steam
engines wherever water power was available. After electric generators were developed in the late
1800s, turbines were a natural source of generator power where potential hydropower sources
existed.

In 1826 the French engineer Benoit Fourneyron developed a high-efficiency (80%) outward-flow
water turbine. Water was directed tangentially through the turbine runner, causing it to spin.
Another French engineer, Jean-Victor Poncelet, designed an inward-flow turbine in about 1820
that used the same principles. S. B. Howd obtained a US patent in 1838 for a similar design.

In 1848 James B. Francis, while working as head engineer of the Locks and Canals company in
the water wheel-powered textile factory city of Lowell, Massachusetts,[4] improved on these
designs to create more efficient turbines. He applied scientific principles and testing methods to
produce a very efficient turbine design. More importantly, his mathematical and graphical
calculation methods improved turbine design and engineering. His analytical methods allowed
the design of high-efficiency turbines to precisely match a site's water flow and pressure (water
head).

Components

A Francis turbine consists of the following main parts:

Spiral casing: The spiral casing around the runner of the turbine is known as the volute casing or
scroll case. Throughout its length, it has numerous openings at regular intervals to allow the
working fluid to impinge on the blades of the runner. These openings convert the pressure energy
of the fluid into kinetic energy just before the fluid impinges on the blades. This maintains a
constant velocity despite the fact that numerous openings have been provided for the fluid to
enter the blades, as the cross-sectional area of this casing decreases uniformly along the
circumference.
Guide and stay vanes: The primary function of the guide and stay vanes is to convert the
pressure energy of the fluid into kinetic energy. It also serves to direct the flow at design angles
to the runner blades.

Runner blades: Runner blades are the heart of any turbine. These are the centers where the fluid
strikes and the tangential force of the impact produces torque causing the shaft of the turbine to
rotate. Close attention to design of blade angles at inlet and outlet is necessary, as these are
major parameters affecting power production.

Draft tube: The draft tube is a conduit that connects the runner exit to the tail race where the
water is discharged from the turbine. Its primary function is to reduce the velocity of discharged
water to minimize the loss of kinetic energy at the outlet. This permits the turbine to be set above
the tail water without appreciable drop of available head.

Theory of operation

Three Gorges Dam Francis turbine runner, on

the Yangtze River, China

The Francis turbine is a type of reaction turbine, a category of turbine in which the working fluid
comes to the turbine under immense pressure and the energy is extracted by the turbine blades
from the working fluid. A part of the energy is given up by the fluid because of pressure changes
occurring on the blades of the turbine, quantified by the expression of degree of reaction, while
the remaining part of the energy is extracted by the volute casing of the turbine. At the exit, water
acts on the spinning cup-shaped runner features, leaving at low velocity and low swirl with very
little kinetic or potential energy left. The turbine's exit tube is shaped to help decelerate the water
flow and recover the pressure.
 Francis turbine Cut-away view, with Cut-away view, with
(exterior view) wicket gates (yellow) wicket gates (yellow)
attached to a at minimum flow at full flow setting
generator setting

Blade efficiency

Ideal velocity diagram, illustrating that

in ideal cases the whirl component of
outlet velocity is zero and the flow is
completely axial

Usually the flow velocity (velocity perpendicular to the tangential direction) remains constant
throughout, i.e. Vf1=Vf2 and is equal to that at the inlet to the draft tube. Using the Euler turbine
equation, E/m=e=Vw1U1, where e is the energy transfer to the rotor per unit mass of the fluid.
From the inlet velocity triangle,

and

Therefore

The loss of kinetic energy per unit mass at the outlet is Vf22/2. Therefore, neglecting friction, the
blade efficiency becomes
i.e.

Degree of reaction

Actual velocity diagram, illustrating

that the whirl component of the outlet
velocity is non-zero

Degree of reaction can be defined as the ratio of pressure energy change in the blades to total
energy change of the fluid.[5] This means that it is a ratio indicating the fraction of total change in
fluid pressure energy occurring in the blades of the turbine. The rest of the changes occur in the
stator blades of the turbines and the volute casing as it has a varying cross-sectional area. For
example, if the degree of reaction is given as 50%, that means that half of the total energy
change of the fluid is taking place in the rotor blades and the other half is occurring in the stator
blades. If the degree of reaction is zero it means that the energy changes due to the rotor blades
is zero, leading to a different turbine design called the Pelton Turbine.

The second equality above holds, since discharge is radial in a Francis turbine. Now, putting in
the value of 'e' from above and using (as )
Application

Small Swiss-made Francis turbine

Francis turbines may be designed for a wide range of heads and flows. This versatility, along with
their high efficiency, has made them the most widely used turbine in the world. Francis type units
cover a head range from 40 to 600 m (130 to 2,000 ft), and their connected generator output
power varies from just a few kilowatts up to 1000 MW. Large Francis turbines are individually
designed for each site to operate with the given water flow and water head at the highest
possible efficiency, typically over 90% (to 99%[6]).

In contrast to the Pelton turbine, the Francis turbine operates at its best completely filled with
water at all times. The turbine and the outlet channel may be placed lower than the lake or sea
level outside, reducing the tendency for cavitation.

In addition to electrical production, they may also be used for pumped storage, where a reservoir
is filled by the turbine (acting as a pump) driven by the generator acting as a large electrical
motor during periods of low power demand, and then reversed and used to generate power
during peak demand. These pump storage reservoirs act as large energy storage sources to
store "excess" electrical energy in the form of water in elevated reservoirs. This is one of a few
methods that allow temporary excess electrical capacity to be stored for later utilization.

See also

Draft tube

Evolution from Francis turbine to Kaplan turbine

Hydropower

Jonval turbine

Kaplan turbine

Pelton wheel
 Sensor fish, a device used to study the impact of fish travelling through Francis and Kaplan
turbines

Citations

1. Lewis, B J; Cimbala, J M; Wouden, A M (2014-03-01). "Major historical developments in the

design of water wheels and Francis hydroturbines" (https://doi.org/10.1088%2F1755-1315%
2F22%2F1%2F012020) . IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science. 22 (1):
012020. Bibcode:2014E&ES...22a2020L (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014E&ES...22
a2020L) . doi:10.1088/1755-1315/22/1/012020 (https://doi.org/10.1088%2F1755-1315%2
F22%2F1%2F012020) . ISSN 1755-1315 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/1755-1315) .
This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under the CC BY
3.0 license.

2. Paul Breeze, Power Generation Technologies (https://books.google.com/books?id=D9qSDg

TbRZoC&pg=PA112) (Third Edition), 2019

3. "Design Overview" (https://www.harlawhydro.org.uk/proposal/design-overview/) . Harlaw

Hydro. 2015-11-13. Retrieved 2024-07-02.

4. "Lowell Notes – James B. Francis" (https://web.archive.org/web/20160310131506/https://

www.nps.gov/lowe/learn/historyculture/upload/JB%20Francis_%20Lowell%20Notes.pdf)
(PDF). National Park Service. Archived from the original (https://www.nps.gov/lowe/learn/hi
storyculture/upload/JB%20Francis_%20Lowell%20Notes.pdf) (PDF) on 2016-03-10.

5. Bansal, RK (2010). A textbook of fluid mechanics and hydraulic machines (Revised ninth ed.).
India: Laxmi publications. pp. 880–883.

6. L. Suo, ... H. Xie, in Comprehensive Renewable Energy, 2012

General bibliography

Layton, Edwin T. From Rule of Thumb to Scientific Engineering: James B. Francis and the
Invention of the Francis Turbine. NLA Monograph Series. Stony Brook, NY: Research Foundation
of the State University of New York, 1992. OCLC 1073565482 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/
1073565482) .

S. M. Yahya, page number 13, fig. 1.14.