Abstracts: Erosion of hydro turbine components through sand laden river water is one of the biggest problems in the Himalayan region. The erosion of turbine components causes the decrease in turbine efficiency; increase in the maintenance cost. The present study has been carried out to investigate the effect of silt erosion for different silt laden parameters and operating parameters such as silt concentration, size of silt particles, jet velocity and operating hours of the turbine on Pelton turbine buckets.
Erosive wear of hydraulic turbine runners depends on different parameters such as size, hardness and silt particle concentration, flow velocity, turbine component base material properties and operating hours of the turbine. Several investigators have conducted experiments to study the effect of these parameters on erosive wear. Most of these experiments were performed on small sample sizes on different types of test equipment to simulate the flow conditions in the turbines, however the actual flow conditions and the erosive wear phenomenon are too complex to simulate. In the present study, the effect of these parameters on erosion under real conditions has been investigated experimentally. A large experimental study has been carried out on a small-scale Pelton turbine. Based on the experimental data collected for different parameters, correlations have been developed for the wear rate of Pelton turbine tanks based on the critical parameters, ie the size and concentration of the silt particles and the velocity of the jet.