Hydropower Systems: Comparison of Mechanistic and Table Look-up Turbine Models

Abstract

In this paper, a detailed overview of hydropower system components is given. Components of the system include intake race, upstream and downstream surge tanks, penstock, turbine and draft tube. A case study which includes a Francis turbine, taken from the literature, was used. The paper presents a case study hydropower system, with models implemented in Modelica. For simplicity, compressibility of water and elasticity of pipe walls were neglected. The main aims are to compare a turbine model based on the Euler equations vs. a table look-up model, and illustrate how the surge tanks influence the transients of the system.