Automizing The Design of Francis Turbine Spiral Case
Automizing The Design of Francis Turbine Spiral Case
Automizing The Design of Francis Turbine Spiral Case
Abstract
Currently the engineering design cycle time for the entire Francis
turbine (H=169m, P=55.8 MW, Q=46.82 m3/sec and N=300 r.p.m)
design is around 3000 hrs. This includes the time taken for the
development of assembly, outline and manufacturing drawings for all
the components. Out of this, approximately 365 hours is spent on the
design of Spiral Case assembly. Once the design cycle starts, the
design engineers are working at 120% load to complete the design on
time. As specific standard is not being followed properly, different
designers design differently. Also the design and drawing creation are
done simultaneously which is resulting in more design cycle time. The
aim of this work is to design and develop an automated application
using Unigraphics NX 3.0 and Knowledge Fusion, which will assist
the users in creating new designs of Spiral Case as per the specification
with help of user friendly interface. Thus automating the generation of
design parameters, 3-D geometry and 2-D drawings of Spiral Case
Assembly and its sub Assemblies as per the standards. This results in
an overall reduction in the design cycle time for Francis Turbine Spiral
Case.
1. Introduction
The major components of Francis turbine are
1.Spiral Case 2.Guide mechanism 3.Runner 4.Draft tube.
464 Ganesh Chembedu et al
The way in which water is fed to the Reaction turbine blades is ingenious. Turbine
efficiency is greatly increased if the entering water has a strong rotational motion or
whirl. To provide such whirl, the water enters a tapered spiral chamber known as a
scroll case or Spiral case, which curves right around the whole unit. Thus several
studies have been conducted for improvement of this component design and reduction
in design cycle time. Presently the Design Engineers at Hydro Turbine group manually
design and validate the Spiral Case Design for correct design requirements. To achieve
this goal with a lesser effort and a lower lead time Spiral Case Design Automation is
developed. This application gathers necessary information from the user and
interactively helps the user to generate the Spiral Case Design by taking care of all the
Design Standards and Best Practices. The Spiral Case Design Automation is built on
Unigraphics/Knowledge Fusion (UG/KF) environment that supports multi-standard
compliance, automate the process of generating 3D models, manufacturing drawings
from the 3D models.
Fig. 10: 2-D drawings of Spiral Case Assembly and Sub Assemblies.
Automizing the Design of Francis Turbine Spiral Case 471
5. Conclusion
A Unigraphics based Knowledge Fusion tool automation application for Spiral Case
design is developed to
1. Make use of one standard set of rules for the design
2. Develop User-friendly Interface for providing the inputs and reviewing the
results.
3. Automate the Generation of Spiral Case design parameters Calculation report.
4. Automate the generation of 3-D geometry of Spiral Case Assembly and sub
Assemblies.
5. Automate the creation of 2D drawings of Spiral Case Assembly and sub
Assemblies.
The above aspects results in an overall reduction in the design cycle time for
Francis Turbines by 65%.Thus the total time to design Spiral Case assembly in the to-
be process can therefore be brought down to an estimated 160 hours in place of the
current 365 hours.
References
[1] Sopta et al. ,1994, “Towards Complete Shape Optimization of Francis Turbine
Spiral Casing” ,ISBN 0471 950637,pages from 1025 to 1029.
[2] Luka et al.,1995, “Turbo Machinery Spiral Casing Optimum Design”, ISBN
0471 990683, pages from 947 to 953.
[3] Mrsa and Zoran, 1994, “Convergence Analysis of Finite Element Method for
Francis Turbine Spiral Casing Flow Simulation”, Elektrotechnik and
Informationstechnik Journal ,ISSN-0932-383x,volume 111,pages from 321 to
324.
[4] R Cattley et al., 2005, “Low Head Hydro Power developments”, Lancaster
University paper, U.K, WREC 2005.
[5] R.L. Daugherty, Hydraulic Turbines ( Mc Graw-Hill).
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