The Francis turbine of Three Gorges hydropower station is one of the large turbi nes with great head variation in the world. The operational stability of the tur bine has been the top subject for departments of design, research, manufacture a nd operation to be concerned about. During the course of preparing bid invitatio n documents and executing the contract for the Three Gorges left power plants turbogenerator units, the hydraulic stability of the turbine was regarded as the most important problem and specific stability indexes of the model turbine and the prototype turbine were respectively specified in the contract. In the model tests for turbine model acceptance, pressure fluctuation phenomena in the case o f partial load were found to be different from the usual ones as people had known. Within the range of operating water head, there existed a peak value zone of pr essure fluctuations with higher frequencies, and large-amplitude pressure fluct uations simultaneously occurred in several localities from the spiral case entra nce to the draft tube. On the basis of test results from the model, the influenc e of cavitation coefficient and aeration on pressure fluctuations is analyzed, a nd some measures to improve the hydraulic stability of turbines of Three Gorges hydropower station are expounded.
展开▼
