Design of an experimental test stand for francis type hydraulic turbines

Recently, TOBB University of Economics and Technology was awarded a grant for a project on "Design, Construction and Test of Hydraulic Turbines" from Turkish Ministry of Development. The project includes Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) aided hydraulic and structural design, geometry optimization, manufacturing and testing of hydraulic turbines. The main objective of the research presented here is to design a hydro turbine test stand which tests the performance and cavitation characteristics of turbine models according to standards. The paper describes the characteristics of the designed test stand.