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Renewable Energy 33 (2008) 15171522

www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

On the use of a laboratory-scale Pelton wheel water turbine in renewable

energy education
D. Agar, M. Rasi
Department of Chemistry, University of Jyvaskyla, P.O. Box 35, FIN-40014 Jyvaskyla, Finland
Received 4 April 2007; accepted 7 September 2007
Available online 23 October 2007

Abstract
A laboratory-scale Pelton turbine for hydroelectric generation has been constructed and used in the educational curriculum of The
Renewable Energy Programme at the University of Jyvaskyla. The construction of the Pelton turbine, the experimental apparatus and
the measurement procedure are described. The apparatus is simple to make and uses inexpensive components, most of which can be
found in standard science laboratories. From the experimental results, the turbine was found to have a maximum mechanical efciency
of 0:47  0:02 for a water ow rate of 0:17 l=s. The Pelton turbine and apparatus demonstrate the principles of hydropower and are well
suited for education in renewable energy.
r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
PACS: 01.50.Pa
Keywords: Pelton wheel; Education; Mini hydropower; Water turbine

1. Introduction
The Renewable Energy (RE) Programme at the University of Jyvaskyla (JYU) was initiated in 2003 as a
multidisciplinary Master-level degree programme focusing
on the RE sector. An important and compulsory component of the curriculum is a laboratory course which aims to
provide students with an understanding of the physical
principles involved in renewable energy generation. To this
end, a laboratory-scale hydroelectric experiment was
devised to demonstrate the technology of Pelton turbines
in hydropower plants.
Hydroelectric generation plays an important role in
global energy supply. For example, in 2003 it accounted for
almost 16% of global electricity generation [1]. It is a
renewable energy source because Earths water cycle is
driven by solar energy. The Pelton turbine, which was
patented by Lester Pelton in 1880, is commonly used in
hydroelectric generation in geographical locations where
Corresponding author.

E-mail address: daagar@jyu. (D. Agar).

0960-1481/$ - see front matter r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.renene.2007.09.003

high water head is available but volume ows are small.

The wheel is tted with vanes evenly spaced about its
circumference. Unlike traditional water wheel designs, each
vane is actually composed of two cups joined by a sharp
ridge. The water ow is directed by one or more nozzles
to strike the ridge of each vane tangentially in succession
and in turn delivers the waters kinetic energy in impulses.
Therefore, the turbine is classied as an impulse turbine.
In principle, the ridge acts to divide the water jet in order
to achieve better mechanical efciency. With an optimised
jet and cup geometry, more than 90% of the power
of the water jet can be transformed into mechanical
power at the turbine shaft [2]. Since the Pelton wheel
rotates in air, the action of the water and wheel rotation is
easily observed by the experimenter. Additionally, there is
a clear observable difference in turbine operation and
water behaviour at maximum efciency conditions as
compared to those of low efciency. Direct observation
of efciency changes is an attractive characteristic from
an educational perspective and it is said that Pelton
himself got the idea for his turbine from such a direct
observation [3].

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2. Theory
The total extractable power of a water jet Pw can be
found from [4]
Pw rghQ

(1)

in which r is the density of water, g the acceleration due to

gravity (9:81 m=s2 , h the available head of the water source
and Q the volumetric water ow rate. The speed of the
water jet vw is found from the ow rate and the crosssection area A of a circular nozzle with diameter D
Q4
vw Q=A
.
(2)
pD2
The mechanical power Ps available at the turbine shaft can
be determined by measuring the torque t on the shaft at a
corresponding angular speed o. The torque is found by
measuring the tangential force F on a brake lever with
moment arm length l, while simultaneously measuring the
rotational speed r of the shaft, as depicted in Fig. 1. The
shaft power is then
Ps ot 2prlF .

(3)

The angular speed o is the tangential speed of the turbine

vt divided by the pitch radius L of the Pelton wheel
o vt =L.

(4)

The mechanical efciency of the turbine describes how

effectively the available kinetic energy of the water jet is
transformed into turbine motion and from (1) and (3) is
Zm

Ps
2prlF
.

Pw rghQ

(5)

Cup and jet design are important parameters and it can be

shown [5] that maximum theoretical mechanical efciency
is achieved when the tangential speed of the turbine is
roughly one-half the speed of the water coming from the jet
or
vt
 0:5.
(6)
vw

in which I is the load current and U the voltage across the

load. The electrical efciency Ze of the generator and the
overall efciency Z0 of hydroelectric generation are then
Ze

Pe
IU
,

Ps 2plF

(8)

Z0

Pe
IU
.

Pw rghQ

(9)

3. Apparatus and methodology

The Pelton turbine consists of a cylindrical hub onto
which 12 vanes have been fastened using screws and rightangle aluminium brackets. The hub and vanes were made
of polyoxymethylene (POM) plastic for easy machineability. The pitch radius of the turbine, which is the distance
from the centre of the shaft to the centre of the impact
point of the water jet, should be roughly 10 times the
diameter of the jet so that adjacent vanes do not interfere
with the water ow [2]. The twin cups on each vane were
shaped by milling two parallel 26 mm hemispherical
grooves using an 8 mm ball-end cutter. The tips and back
sides of the vanes were shaped by free-hand grinding with a
belt sander. The shape and size of the hub and cups were
selected according to available tools and materials. Other
geometries or manufacturing methods would, most certainly, work equally well. The turbine shaft is supported
directly by the transparent acrylic turbine housing which
allows the action of the water to be easily observed. No
attempt was made to balance the nished turbine. The
device is shown in Fig. 2 with the upper section of the
housing removed for better viewing. A hose-coupling
connector from a garden supply store is used as a water
nozzle. It is located on the lower corner of the housing, and

When the turbine shaft is coupled to an electric generator which supplies electricity to a variable resistive load R
(Fig. 3), the electrical power Pe of the load is
Pe IU

(7)
F

Fig. 1. The measurement of the torque on the turbine shaft is performed

using a brake lever with a moment arm length l. The lever consists of two
wooden splints which are clamped around the shaft by use of two screws.
The tangential force F is measured directly using a spring scale.

Fig. 2. Details of the Pelton wheel showing the 12 vanes evenly spaced
around the central hub. The turbine shaft is tted with a pulley wheel
(foreground) which drives the DC generator (not shown) using a rubber
belt. The nozzle is shown in the lower-right corner. The upper part of the
housing was removed for the photograph.

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V
water nozzle

Pelton turbine

DC generator

load circuit

Fig. 3. A schematic showing the experimental setup for the Pelton wheel water turbine experiment.

has been attached using thick exible rubber gaskets which

allow the impact point of the jet to be adjusted so that it
strikes the dividing ridge between cups on the lower side of
the turbine. The nozzle diameter is about 6 mm and the
pitch radius of the turbine is about 60 mm.
Outside the housing, the back of the nozzle is tted with
a T-connection which is used for the incoming water source
and for the measurement of pressure, respectively. A
pressure gauge can be tted directly to the back of the
nozzle or a connection to a mercury manometer can be
made. In the system under discussion both methods have
been used to determine the pressure but the manometer
method appears more instructive to students.
Water is supplied to the nozzle by an electric pump and
exible tubing. After striking the vanes, water exits the
turbine housing through a hole at the base and ows back
to an enclosure in which the intake of the pump is located.
The volume ow rate of water is measured and controlled
using a magnetic volume owmeter1 and hand-operated
valve. A more simple low-cost method, however, is to use a
graduated liquid measure and a stop watch to measure the
volume ow.
One end of the turbine shaft extends through the wall of
the housing and is tted with a pulley wheel, which drives a
small DC electric generator by use of a rubber belt. The
generator itself is a salvaged motor from a DC cooling fan.
In order to determine the rotational speed of the turbine,
a frequency-adjustable stroboscopic light is used to
illuminate the pulley wheel. While observing reference
marks on the spinning pulley wheel, the strobe frequency is
adjusted until a particular mark appears to be stationary.
When this is observed, the frequency of the strobe and the
speed of rotation of the wheel are equal, assuming the
experimenter has eliminated the possibilities of corresponding harmonic frequencies.
A brake lever is used to determine the torque on the
turbine shaft, see Fig. 1. The lever is made from two
wooden splints, which when tted together and tightened
with two screws, apply a frictional force on the turbine
shaft. While the shaft is spinning, the force acting at rightangles on the lever can be measured directly with a spring
scale calibrated in Newtons. For the turbine under
1

Danfoss Magflos Flowmeter type MAG 5000.

discussion, measured forces have been in the range of

0.11.5 N with a moment arm length of some 70 mm.
The load circuit of the DC generator consists of an
adjustable 02100 kO decade resistor.2 Load current and
voltage have been measured using digital multi-meters. The
experimental setup is shown in Fig. 3.
Students have conducted experiments with the Pelton
turbine using three different water volume ow rates,
referred to as Q1 , Q2 and Q3 . The water pressure p at the
nozzle is measured for each Q value with the turbine shaft
rotating freely. If a mercury manometer is used, the power
Pw from (1) is
Pw pQ rHg gDhQ,

(10)

where rHg is the density of mercury (13 550 kg=m3 ) and Dh

is the measured height difference between the two mercury
columns.
The relationship between the tangential force on the
shaft and the speed of rotation is then determined using the
brake lever for each Q value. An empirical expression for
the force as a function of rotational speed is tted to this
data using appropriate software. This relationship is
generally found to be of a linear nature in the range of
variables described.
With the drive belt connected to the DC generator and
the brake lever removed from the turbine shaft, the current
and voltage of the resistive load are measured, while
simultaneously measuring the rotational speed of the
turbine. This is repeated for several values of load
resistance. The measurement yields the electrical power
produced by the generator as a function of rotational
speed. The expressions found for tangential force are
required to calculate the electrical efciency of the DC
generator at rotational speeds not directly measured with
the brake lever.
Using experimental data, the mechanical, electrical and
overall efciency of the laboratory-scale hydroelectric
power plant and their accompanying experimental uncertainties are calculated for each Q value.

Cambridge Instrument Co. Ltd.

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4. Results and discussion

Typical results of the student experiment are shown in
the following table and gures. Table 1 lists the Q values
used, followed by the corresponding pressure at the nozzle
which was calculated from the difference in height of the
mercury columns in a manometer. The maximum values
are given for the water jet power, shaft power and the
electrical power available for the load. The corresponding
maximum mechanical and electrical efciencies are on the
right side of the table along with the maximum total
efciency of the laboratory-scale hydroelectric plant.
Fig. 4 shows the three tted linear equations describing
the relationship between the measured tangential force on
the break lever and the rotational speed of the turbine.
The mechanical efciency of the turbine (Eq. 5) as a
function of rotation speed is plotted in Fig. 5. For clarity,
second-order polynomial equations have been tted.
According to the results, as the water volume ow is
increased, the maximum mechanical efciency of the

turbine occurs at higher rotation speeds. Although, from

the gure, Q2 appears to result in the highest efciency, the
differences in maximum efciency are of the same
magnitude as the experimental uncertainties.
Fig. 6 depicts the mechanical efciency as a function of the
speed ratio between the tangential speed of the turbine to the
speed of the water jet. The plot includes the experimental
uncertainties and clearly shows that for all Q values, the
maximum efciency occurs at a common vt =vw value. The
value is approximately 0:6 which, according to the description of Eq. (6), differs somewhat from the theoretical value.
5. Conclusion
A laboratory-scale Pelton turbine for hydroelectric
generation has been constructed and used in the educational curriculum of The Renewable Energy Programme at
the University of Jyvaskyla. The turbine is constructed of
inexpensive components, most of which can be found in
standard science laboratories. From the experimental

Table 1
The three Q values used in the experiment, the corresponding pressure values measured and the calculated maximum values of power, mechanical,
electrical and total efciency of the laboratory-scale hydroelectric plant

1
2
3

Q (l/s)

p (Pa)

Pw (W)

Pa (W)

Pe (W)

Zm

Ze

Z0

0.14
0.17
0.20

25 800
34 400
47 100

3.7
5.9
9.5

1.7
2.8
4.4

0.29
0.66
1.0

0.45
0.47
0.46

0.23
0.26
0.28

0.08
0.11
0.11

Fig. 4. The relationships between tangential force on the brake lever and rotational speed of the turbine at the three water volume ow rates.

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Fig. 5. The mechanical efciency of the Pelton turbine as a function of the speed of rotation for three different water volume ow rates.

Fig. 6. Mechanical efciency of the Pelton turbine as a function of the speed ratio (Eq. (6)) of the vane tangential speed to the water jet speed.

results, the turbine was found to have a maximum

mechanical efciency of 0:47  0:02 for a water ow rate
of 0:17 l=s. The Pelton turbine and apparatus demonstrate
the principles of hydropower and are well suited in the
education of students of renewable energy.

Acknowledgements
Development of the laboratory component of the RE
Programmes educational curriculum at JYU was supported nancially by the European Social Fund.

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References
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[3] American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The Pelton water wheel
collection. Grass Valley, CA: North Star Power House Museum; 1991.

hhttp://les.asme.org/ASMEORG/Communities/History/Landmarks/
5617.pdf/i.
[4] White FM. Fluid mechanics. 3rd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Inc.;
1994.
[5] El-Wakil MM. Powerplant technologyinternational edition. New
York: McGraw-Hill Inc.; 1984.