Abstract
Water supply pipelines and canals may possess a bulky amount of excess hydro energy. The renewable and clean feature of hydropower production with the lower cost, with shorter time of construction, and with contribution of small private sectors for investment on local projects are of major concerns. However, high expenses associated with the use of turbines in small hydropower plants have encouraged the water industry toward the use of pump as turbine (PAT). The main problem is that the pumps manufacturers do not supply the characteristics curves for using pumps in PAT mode. There is a great need for predicting the performance of PATs. The main aim of the present study was to investigate the performance of a single-stage and a multi-stage pump in turbine operating mode. An intensive field study was carried out, and the performance of the PATs was formulated and compared with the relationships presented by the preceding studies. The results indicated that the multi-stage pumps exhibit a low efficiency in turbine mode, mainly due to the high rate of leakage and non-uniform pressure distribution over the blades. Alternatively, the single-stage pumps in series operation are more effective. The top-point efficiency of PATs is higher than that of pumping mode; hence, the maximum efficiency of PATs is achieved for higher discharges and pressures. The results indicate that the existing experimental relationships are not yet capable of predicting a precise performance of different PATs. Therefore, manufacturers are to provide users with the characteristic curves of those pumps that are capable of being operating as turbines.
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Mohammadi, M., Yasi, M., Jamali, S. et al. Experimental Study on Single- and Multi-stage Pump as Turbine on Water Supply Pipelines. Iran J Sci Technol Trans Civ Eng 46, 3307–3318 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40996-021-00761-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40996-021-00761-1