Hydro-electric power is a method of generating electricity from the rotational force of turbine blades by using the potential energy of a river or reservoir water. Recently, the necessity of small hydropower development is expanding due to the development and support of renewable energy, and because of the difficulty and environmental problems of huge dams. The purpose of this paper is to deal with a method of increasing the efficiency of small water turbine that can be adopt in low head condition. In order to improve the turbine efficiency, channel shape is optimized in order to minimize head loss using computational fluid dynamics. The angle values for the contraction and enlargement part of the channel where the turbine is located are found from the analyses. Additionally, three-dimensional analysis is applied to the optimized channel shape in order to confirm the optimized pipe.

• 고현(전북대학교 대학원 기계설계공학과) | Hyeon Kou
• 임익태(전북대학교) | Im Ik-Tae