The continuous worsening of the natural surroundings requires accelerating the exploration of green energy technology. Utilising ambient vibration to power electronic equipment constitutes an important measure to address the power crisis. Vibration power is widely dispersed in the surroundings, such as mechanical vibration, acoustic vibration, wind vibration, and water wave vibration. Collecting vibration energy is one of the research hotspots in the field of energy. Meanwhile, it is also an important way to solve the energy crisis. This paper illustrates the working principles and recent research progress of five known methods of vibrational energy harvesting, namely, electromagnetic, piezoelectric, friction electric, electrostatic, and magnetostrictive vibrational energy harvesters. The strengths and weaknesses of each method are summarised. At the end of the article, the future trends of micro-nano vibrational energy collectors are envisioned.

The sediment erosion of Pelton turbine components is a major challenge in the operation and development of high-head water resources, especially in mountainous areas with high sediment yield. In this paper, a study using numerical simulation was conducted with different sediment particle sizes in the fine sand range. And the erosion mechanism of the Pelton turbine injector was analyzed. The Eulerian Lagrange method was adopted to simulate the gas–liquid–solid flow. The Mansouri’s model was applied to estimate the injector erosion. The predicted erosion results were in accord with field erosion photographs. In particular, the asymmetrical erosion distribution on the needle surface was physically reproduced. With the sediment particle size increasing from 0.05 mm, the needle erosion rate decreased, while the nozzle casing erosion rate increased dramatically. In order to clarify this tendency, the characteristics of the three-phase flow were analyzed. Interestingly, the results show that with the rise in particle size, the separation of particles and water streamlines became more serious in the contraction section of the nozzle mouth. Consequently, it caused the enhancement of erosion of the nozzle surfaces and weakened the erosion of the needle surfaces. Significant engineering insights may be provided for weakening Pelton injector erosion with needle guides in the current study.

Guide vanes (GVs) are installed between the runner and the stay vanes for flow guidance and discharge regulation in reversible pump-turbines. The unstable torsional self-excited vibration of the guide vane (GV) may occur when running at small guide vane opening angles during the transient operations involving pump flow. In addition, the double-stage radial vanes may induce complex flow in the vanes and influence the stability of torsional self-excited vibration of the guide vane. In this study, numerical simulations were conducted at small guide vane opening angles in pump mode for two different guide vanes based on the three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. The flow regime with a deflection was formed on the trailing edge with a circle in the vaneless region that rotated reversely against the runner rotation when operating at smaller guide vane opening angles for both of the two guide vanes. Based on this, the coupling simulations based on the CFD method with a single-degree-of-freedom (1DOF) oscillator were carried out under these operating conditions. Two flow types were formed at small opening angles when adopting different inlet boundary conditions. The results showed the flow regime with a deflection on the trailing edge may aggravate the instability of torsional vibration when applied as an initial flow field. Moreover, the vibration instability of the torsional self-excitation for two guide vanes was analyzed, showing that modifying the profile of guide vane airfoil is an efficient and reliable approach for weakening the torsional vibration instability.

Unstable guide vane torsional mode self-excited vibrations that occur at small guide vane openings during the transient operations with pump flow, such as the starting and closing of the pump mode, are considered to have potentially severe consequences, such as guide vane slippage or damage to the link and lever mechanism. Related site tests have indicated that the end wall clearance of a guide vane may have important influences on torsional mode self-excited vibrations. In this paper, numerical investigations, which were based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with a single degree of freedom (1DOF) mass-spring oscillator, were carried out on a prototype high-head reversible pump turbine. The results showed that the guide vane self-excited vibrations are unstable under steady-state conditions and during the pump mode’s starting up process for cases with small end wall clearances. In addition, the critical conditions of self-excitation instability under steady-state conditions have larger safety margins than those during the pump mode’s starting up process. After further discussion, it was concluded that increasing the end wall clearance to suppress unstable guide vane self-excited vibration is unreliable due to the complexity and randomness of the initial vibration excitations.

The Pelton turbine has been widely applied for the advantages of its simple structure, flexible mass flow rate, wide range of applicable heads and high efficiency. The nozzle and needle are a core part of the Pelton turbine injector. In this paper, the VOF (Volume of Fluid) model was used to simulate the jet flow behaviors and hydraulic performance for a Pelton injector with a needle tip with different breakage losses. Three types of needle tip breakage loss combined with normal needle tip were selected for numerical calculation and analysis, focusing on the influence of needle tip on the high-speed jet flow characteristics. An injector with normal needle tip hydraulic performance is compared with the model test. Finally, the injector hydraulic performance and the jet flow behavior changes with the needle tip shape were comprehensively analyzed. Results show that the needle tip shape almost does not affect the flow rate; when the tip breakage loss is larger than 0.1 of nozzle diameter, the jet efficiency will decrease rapidly and the jet will diffuse rapidly after outflow from the injector. The investigation provides a basis for the operation, maintenance and stability of the Pelton turbine.

The rapid and stable start-up of multi-nozzle Pelton turbines is crucial for improving the flexibility and operational safety of the unit. Discharge adjustment via nozzle configurations enables rapid start-up and power regulation. However, the mechanism of different nozzle configurations, which directly influence the runner’s internal flow patterns and the runner-bucket system’s structural response during the start-up transient process, is still unclear. This study employs the one-way CFD-FEM coupling method to compare the transient characteristics of a prototype six-nozzle Pelton turbine under two- and four-nozzle configurations during the start-up processes. Results show that the two-nozzle configuration leads to a longer start-up duration and higher moment fluctuating amplitudes on the buckets. The four-nozzle configuration shortens the start-up duration but has problems with the imbalance of runner radial force and a greater possibility of rotational speed overshoot. At the opening stage, the maximum stresses for both configurations occur at the buckets’ root. The maximum stresses are concentrated on the buckets’ inner surface as the runner accelerates. These findings provide significant insights for enhancing the flexible regulation of hydropower units in the New Power System.