A series of inline pico hydropower systems, which could be used in confined space, especially for water distribution networks (WDNs), was designed and investigated. The turbine with an eye-shaped vertical water baffle was developed to evaluate the hydraulic performance. A three-dimensional dynamic mesh was employed and the inlet velocity was considered as the inlet boundary condition, whereas the outlet boundary was set as the outflow. Then, numerical simulations were conducted and the standard k-ε turbulence model was found to be the best capable of predicting flow features through the comparison with the experimental results. The effects of the opening diameter of the water baffle and installation angle of the rotor on the flow field in the turbine were investigated. The results suggested that the water baffle opening at d =30 mm and the rotor at a 52° angle could achieve the highest efficiency of 5.93%. The proper eye-shaped baffle not only accelerates the fluid flow and generates positive hydro-dynamic torque, but also eliminates the flow separation. The scheme proposed in this paper can be exploited for practical applications in the water pipelines at various conditions and power requirements.

设计并研究了一系列可在密闭空间中使用的串联微型水力发电系统，特别是用于水分配网络（WDN）。开发了带有眼形垂直挡板的涡轮机，以评估其水力性能。使用三维动态网格，将入口速度视为入口边界条件，而将出口边界设为流出。然后，进行了数值模拟，并且标准k - ε通过与实验结果进行比较，发现湍流模型最能预测流动特征。研究了挡板的开孔直径和转子安装角度对涡轮流场的影响。结果表明，水挡板在d = 30 mm处打开，转子在52°角时可获得最高效率，为5.93％。合适的眼形挡板不仅可以加速流体流动并产生正的流体动力扭矩，而且可以消除流体分离。本文提出的方案可以在各种条件和功率要求的水管道中实际应用。