Investigation of Manufacturing of a Pelton Turbine Runner of Composite Material on a 3D Printer
A. Murad GÜLLÜOĞLU , Oğuzhan BENDEŞ , Buğra YILMAZ , Adem YILDIZ
INTRODUCTION
The 3D additive manufacturing method is used in different fields in the industry day to day. However, studies and product developments using different material types (polymer, composite, metal) do continue.
For many years, products have been produced from polymer based materials by additive manufacturing method and used in many areas of the industry; automotive, medical, advertising and promotion sectors in particular.
In the energy industry, too, various studies are carried out on the equipment produced on 3D metal printers.
In addition to this, different designs and cost-reducing studies are effectively urged upon in connection with the equipment that generate power from renewable energy sources.
Generation of energy from renewable energy sources increases in value with day to day due to low carbon emissions as well as environmental and climatic conditions.
Approximately 15% of the world's energy demand is provided by hydraulic energy (Chouhan et al., 2017).
In hydraulic energy, generation of energy is provided by using different turbine types depending on flow rate and head.
Pelton turbine is preferred in projects with higher heads (pressure).
In the study carried out by Takagi et al. (2014) it was conducted on a Pelton turbine that had been manufactured by means of additive manufacturing technique with nylon resin fibreglass matrix to accelerate the production time of the Pelton turbine and reduce the costs and it was stated that the design errors were detected earlier.
In addition, it should be considered that the corrosion resistance of composite materials is higher and this will provide an advantage for use in micro turbine systems (Shirisha et al., 2014). In reducing the total weight, it is possible to manufacture lighter turbine runners with 1/7 composite materials, especially when compared to steel.
Manufacturers can also reduce costs by reducing the processing rate and total production time on conventional machines (Albertani, 2013).