Impact of a Guide Vane clearance Gap in a Francis turbine flow; a comparison between experimental and computational Data

The problem of the leakage flow between Guide Vane and the covering plate due to erosion is a strong source of inefficiency. To investigate this issue the TU university of Wien built a model, testing it at several configurations of Gap span and closing angle of the Guide Vane. This thesis aims to perform some simulations of these tests in ANSYS CFX, both in SS and Transient mode. The data are compared, the CFX model is validated and further considerations are carried out.