A Preliminary Study of Modified Inclination Angle on the Two-Stage Gravitational Water Vortex Turbine

A gravitational water vortex turbine is an eco-friendly and promising technology that harnesses electricity from the micro hydro scale. In this study, a simple experimental analysis was conducted to enhance the performance of the GWVT turbine, which addresses the developed two-stage GWVT. The underlying concept of the two-stage GWVT development aims to maximally harness the vortex flow motion energy along the conical basin. Nevertheless, the turbine’s geometric features may have a substantial impact on the performance of both stage-1 and stage-2 turbines. As a result, in this study, the stage-2 inclination (60° & 70°) turbine is adjusted to assess the impacts on the torque and mechanical power of the stage-1 turbine. The results show that using 60° blade inclination produced total mechanical power of 13.73 W with an efficiency of 16.7%. The increase in inclination angle has a minor decrease in Stage-1 torsion and mechanical power.