Optimal design of axial hydro turbine for micro hydropower plants

In our country we have enormous low head potation flows in agricultures and aquacultures with almost fix flow rates that can be used as micro hydro power plants for producing energy. But the main problem is the high capital price per kW. Therefore there is needed to design a simple machine with a good runner for covering the various potential flows. In this paper an axial hydro turbine has designed for some low heads micro potential flow with flow rates ranged from 50 lit/sec to 150 lit/sec and heads ranged from 1 m to 5 m. The initial runner designed using classical methods and then the runner geometry has been optimized by evolutionary optimization algorithms. The final design has been simulated by a commercial flow solver in a various blade positions. The results showed a wide range characteristic curve with a wide range high efficiency.