Droplets impact erosion

The present doctoral work is related to the erosion arising from repeated impacts of high speed water droplets on specific parts of Pelton turbines. Indeed for high head Pelton units, the jet of water is composed of a liquid core surrounded by droplets.

Observations show that regions of impact of these droplets exhibit specific erosion patterns. The doctoral work will consist in understanding the corresponding erosion mechanisms through detailed numerical simulation (micro-scale) of the impacts of high speed liquid droplets on turbine components. These results will then be transposed at the machine level (macro-scale) in order to predict the damaging along the life cycle of the turbine.