International Research Journal of Advanced Engineering and Science

ISSN (Online): 2455-9024

A Review Paper on Design of Elbow Draft Tube for

Unsteady Flow
Jitendra Gupta1, Santosh Sahu2
1, 2
Mechanical Engg. Dept., Rungta College of Engineering and Technology, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India-492001

Abstract— In this research our main objective is to design a elbow  The purpose of the draft tube of a water turbine is to
draft tube with varying diffuser angle and to find out the optimized reduce the exit velocity with a minimum loss of energy.
model for the same or with enhanced diffuser angle. In order to  The draft tube „converts‟ the kinetic energy into pressure
enhance the design methodology as compare to the conventional energy.
draft tube design, we are adopting the method to resolve the problem
of draft tube design and to reduce the cost of prototyping and to get
the improved results by using computational fluid analysis in ANSYS
14.0 by CFX solver.
Keywords— CFD analysis, draft tube, pressure, stream line.

I. INTRODUCTION
The draft tube is one of the important components of
Hydraulic reaction turbine and it connects the runner exit to
the tail race. The main functions of draft tube is to allow the
installation of turbine above the tail race level without loss of
head and to convert major part of kinetic energy at the runner  Geometrically the draft tube is a fairly simple device, a
outlet into pressure energy . With the use of very low head and bending pipe diverging in the stream wise direction.
high speed turbines, the kinetic energy leaving the runner  Dynamical processes of the flow in a draft tube is very
became higher and the height of the runner above the tail race complex and many unsteady effects have been observed.
became smaller. This is achieved by increasing the cross-  Draft tubes can be designed in slightly different ways, but
sectional area of the draft tube in the flow direction. Initially, some design variables are of less importance than others.
the straight conical tubes with inlet and outlet areas of  The shape of the outlet, circular or rectangular, is often of
different cross-section were used and part of kinetic energy less importance than the outlet area.
could be converted into potential energy for use in the turbine.
The hydrodynamic investigations on straight draft tubes B. Types of Draft Tube
were carried out between 1903 and 1907 and investigators
adopted walls of draft tube parallel to streamline based on
theoretical solutions. However, it did not find much practical
application due to non-uniform distribution of flow at the
entry, swirling of flow and vortex flow along the length of the
tube. A large number of investigations were carried out on
straight diffusers during in the period 1909 to 1929 lead the
design of various draft tubes (reference). The use of straight
tubes was restricted to turbines of medium and small
diameters because with the increase of the diameter of the
runner, the length of the tube became so large that became
irrational to construct such tubes. The recovery of the kinetic
energy of axial and rotational flow can be best affected in bell
mouth tubes. The use of such tubes for large runner diameters
has again restriction due to support problem of such large
dimensions and weight. All these problems are overcome by
elbow draft tube for large diameter hydraulic turbines. The
determination of optimum shape and dimension of the draft C. Need to Work on Draft Tube
tube is a very difficult problem and has not been solved till  The draft tube plays an important role on overall
now. The height of curved draft tube has a great influence on performance of reaction turbine.
the efficiency and power output of turbine.  The efficiency of draft tube depends on its shape and other
A. Properties of Draft Tube geometric parameter the most commonly used draft tube is
 Draft tube is a divergent tube one end is connected to the elbow draft tube with rectangular outlet.
outlet of the turbine and other end is immersed well below  The shape and area of draft tube at outlet as well as along
the water level. its length may improve the efficiency of turbine.

144

Jitendra Gupta and Santosh Sahu, “A review paper on design of elbow draft tube for unsteady flow,” International Research Journal of
Advanced Engineering and Science, Volume 2, Issue 1, pp. 144-147, 2017.
 International Research Journal of Advanced Engineering and Science
ISSN (Online): 2455-9024

D. Principles of Draft Tube Pro/Program is a powerful secondary generation tool to

The principle of draft tube is determined by the use of validate parametric design of the component. Pro/Program
Bernoulli‟s Equation between section inlet 1-1 and outlet 2-2 reflects all parameters and geometric data of the part in a text
in fig.- data form. This data can be modified to new feature, deleting
existing feature, suppress the feature and change the
dimension of the feature. A proper user interface (API) can
directly modify the Pro/Program and the part modal can be
driven according to the user input in user interfacing. The
boundary condition for draft tube analysis have been applied.
In boundary condition inlet mass flow rate is given 1000
kg/sec and outlet boundary condition.

p1 V2 p V2
 z1  1  2  2  h f
g 2g  g 2g
 The absolute pressure at section 2-2 can also be defined as
p2 
 Z 2  atm
g g
 hence equation becomes,
p1 atm  V 2 V 2 
   H S   1  2  h f  
g g   2g 2g 

II. PREVIOUS WORK Fig. 2. Velocity contour.

The efficiency of a hydraulic reaction turbine is
significantly affected by the performance of its draft tube. The
shape and velocity distribution at the inlet are, in next turn,
two main factors that affects the performance of the draft tube.
Traditionally, the design of this component has been based on
simplified analytic methods, experimental rules of thumb and
model tests. An attempt has been made for design automation
of modeling of draft tube using Excel spreadsheet and Creo
parametric software. In the last decade or two, the usage of
computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has dramatically
increased in the design process and will continue to grow due
to is flexibility and cost-effectiveness. A CFD-based design
search can further be aided with a robust and user-friendly
optimization frame work theory and engineering. In this paper, Fig. 3. Pressure at inlet.
the CFD analysis of draft tube has been performed and results
for the same are compared with experimental reading and Shows the pressure at inlet(-2.100× 105Pa) and pressure at
which are found within the limit [1]. outlet(1.071× 105 Pa)respectively. [1]
Design Automation of Draft Tube
As per the client‟s specification, dimensions for draft tube
have been decided and 2D drawing for the same has been
prepared as shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 4. Pressure at outlet.

Fig. 1. 2D drawing of draft tube.

145

Jitendra Gupta and Santosh Sahu, “A review paper on design of elbow draft tube for unsteady flow,” International Research Journal of
Advanced Engineering and Science, Volume 2, Issue 1, pp. 144-147, 2017.
 International Research Journal of Advanced Engineering and Science
ISSN (Online): 2455-9024

 During 1909 to1929, number of investigations were

carried out on straight diffuser. The work of A. Gibson, H.
Hochschild and I. Nikurdze refers to this field.
H.Hochschild and I. Nikurdze observed the coefficient of
resistance and characteristics of flow. Later in USA the
idea of bell mouthed draft tube in the nineteenth century
comes in consideration but its practical application found
latter. In 1917, W.M. White designed and built a bell
mouthed tube for the hydraulic stations at Niagara Falls. In
1919, moody suggested that the well mouthed tube with a
cone that would fill the dead zone created in the swirling
flow. The moody draft tube was widely used in large
Fig. 5. Velocity streamline.
hydroelectric stations in USA.
 A lot of work and studies have been done on turbines
Comparison with Experimental Reading (existing and newly developed) using Computational Fluid
The pressure and velocity at inlet and outlet of draft tube Dynamics which described in various research papers. Few
has been measured by experimental procedure. The same of the papers which are referred are described below.
results have been compared with ANSYS analysis results and
% difference has been found as given in table 1, which shows IV. METHODOLOGY
both results are in good agreement with each other. Various Steps Used For CFD Analyses of Elbow Draft Tube :-
Comparison between ANSYS and practical reading
Inlet Pressure Outlet Pressure
Ansys Result -2.100× 105Pa 1.071× 105 Pa
Practical Reading -1.99× 105Pa 1.12× 105 Pa
% Difference 5.23 % 4.38

III. LITERATURE REVIEW

(a). Design modification of draft tube for hydro power plant
using CFD analysis.

Fig. 6. Steps used in CFD simulation.

Software Work in Three Processes

{a} Pre-processor.
{b} Simulation.
{c} Post-processor.
 A pre-processor for creating, assembling, or modifying the
data required to analyze the simulation, and for generating
the required database file.
(b). Numerical simulation for performance of Elbow draft tube  A simulation engine for performing the numerical
at different geometrical configurations. calculations required to analyze the process, and writing
the results to the database file. The simulation engine reads
the database file, performs the actual solution calculation,
and appends the appropriate solution data to the database
file.
 A post-processor for reading the database file from the
simulation engine and displaying the results graphically
and for extracting numerical data.
V. FUTURE OBJECTIVE
The draft tube plays an important role on overall
performance of reaction turbine. The efficiency of draft tube
depends on its shape and other geometric parameter the most
commonly used draft tube is elbow draft tube with rectangular

146

Jitendra Gupta and Santosh Sahu, “A review paper on design of elbow draft tube for unsteady flow,” International Research Journal of
Advanced Engineering and Science, Volume 2, Issue 1, pp. 144-147, 2017.
 International Research Journal of Advanced Engineering and Science
ISSN (Online): 2455-9024

outlet. The shape and area of draft tube at outlet as well as [2] U. Anderson, “Experimental study of sharp heel draft tube,” Thesis
(PhD), Lulea University of Technology, Sweden, 2009.
along its length may improve the efficiency of turbine.
[3] R. Khare, V. Prasad, and S. Kumar Mittal, “Effect of runner solidity on
performance of elbow draft tube,” Proceedings of the 2nd International
VI. CONCLUSION conference on advances in energy engineering (ICAEE), Energy
In this research our main objective is to design a elbow Procedia, 14, pp. 2054-2059, 2012.
[4] V. Prasad, R. Khare, and A. Chincholikar, “Hydraulic performance of
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The simulation method is used to resolve the problem of draft [5] U. Rajak, V. Prasad, and R. Khare, “Numerical flow simulation using
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147

Jitendra Gupta and Santosh Sahu, “A review paper on design of elbow draft tube for unsteady flow,” International Research Journal of
Advanced Engineering and Science, Volume 2, Issue 1, pp. 144-147, 2017.