This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues.Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. The governing Partial Differential Equations are discretized using a procedure similar to the linear conforming Finite Element Galerkin scheme, with a different flux formulation and a special flux treatment that requires Delaunay triangulation but entire solution monotonicity. A simple mesh adjustment is suggested, that attains the Delaunay condition for all the triangle sides without changing the original nodes location and also maintains the internal boundaries. The original governing system is solved applying a fractional time step procedure, that solves consecutively a convective prediction system and a diffusive correction system. The non linear components of the problem are concentrated in the prediction step, while the correction step leads to the solution of a linear system of the order of the number of computational cells. A semi-analytical procedure is applied for the solution of the prediction step. The discretized formulation of the governing equations allows to handle also wetting and drying processes without any additional specific treatment. Local energy dissipations, mainly the effect of vertical walls and hydraulic jumps, can be easily included in the model.Several numerical experiments have been carried out in order to test (1) the stability of the proposed model with regard to the size of the Courant number and to the mesh irregularity, (2) its computational performance, (3) the convergence order by means of mesh refinement. The model results are also compared with the results obtained by a fully dynamic model. Finally, the application to a real field case with a Venturi channel is presented.

In the present paper it is first shown that, due to their structure, the general governing equations of uncompressible real fluids can be regarded as an "anisotropic" potential flow problem and closed streamlines cannot occur at any time. For a discretized velocity field, a fast iterative procedure is proposed to order the computational elements at the beginning of each time level, allowing a sequential solution element by element of the advection problem. Some closed circuits could appear due to the discretization error and the elements involved in these circuits could not be ordered. We prove in the paper that the total flux of these not ordered elements goes to zero by refining the computational mesh and that it is possible to order all the remaining elements by neglecting the minimum inter-element flux inside each circuit, with a very small resulting error.The methodology is then applied to the solution of the 2D shallow water equations. The governing Partial Differential Equations are discretized over a generally unstructured triangular mesh, which attains the generalised Delaunay property. Solution is obtained applying a prediction-correction time step procedure. The prediction problem is solved applying a MArching in Space and Time (MAST) procedure, where the computational elements are required to be ordered and explicitly solved. In the correction step, a large linear well-conditioned system is solved. Model results are compared with experimental data and other numerical literature results. Computational costs have been estimated and the convergence order has been investigated according to a known exact solution. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd

The potential energy of the water in Water Distribution Networks (WDNs) usually exceeds the amount needed for delivery and consumption and, at the present time, it is mainly dissipated through Pressure Reducing Valves (PRVs) or Open Water Tanks. The present study suggests the use of a new energy-producing device, a Cross-flow turbine with positive outlet pressure named PRS (Power Recovery System), which can provide the same service as PRVs and water tanks, with additional significant hydropower production. After a short presentation of the PRS, the management rules of the proposed device are laid out, according to two possible modes. In the 'passive' mode, the piezometric level downstream of the turbine is fixed at the sought after value, in the 'active' mode, the discharge is regulated according to the required value. The design criterion is then presented, based on a simple relationship linking dimensionless numbers. A PRS is finally designed for a typical water distribution network, serving the city of Palermo (Italy). The resulting cost-benefit analysis is compared with a similar one carried out in previous work for a regulation system based on the use of a Pump As Turbine (PAT). The comparison shows the improvement obtained by the use of the PRS, consisting of higher energy production, as well as lower construction and installation costs.

Numerical and experimental investigation of a cross-flow water turbine ABSTRACT A numerical and experimental study was carried out for validation of a previously proposed design criterion for a cross-flow turbine and a new semi-empirical formula linking inlet velocity to inletpressure. An experimental test stand was designed to conduct a series of experiments and to measure the efficiency of the turbine designed based on the proposed criterion. The experimental efficiency was compared to that from numerical simulations performed using a RANS model with a shear stress transport (SST) turbulence closure. The proposed semi-empirical velocity formula was also validated against the numerical solutions for cross-flow turbines with different geometries and boundary conditions. The results confirmed the previous hydrodynamic analysis and thus can be employed in the design of the cross-flow turbines as well as for reducing the number of simulations needed to optimize the turbine geometry.

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Cross-flow turbines are very efficient and cheap turbines that allow a very good cost/benefit ratio for energy production located at the end of conduits carrying water from a water source to a tank. In this paper a new design procedure for a cross-flow turbine working with a variable flow rate is proposed. The regulation of the head immediately upstream the turbine is faced by adopting a shaped semicircular segment moving around the impeller. The maximum efficiency of the turbine is attained by setting the velocity of the particles entering the impeller at about twice the velocity of the rotating system at the impeller inlet. If energy losses along the pipe are negligible, the semicircular segment allows always a constant hydraulic head and a constant velocity at the impeller inlet, even with variable flow rate. The decrease of the turbine efficiency along with the inlet surface reduction is first investigated; a design methodology, using also CFD simulations, is then proposed for both the cases of negligible and not negligible energy losses along the pipe.