This paper presents an experimental investigation of a 0.488 m rotor diameter self-rectifying biradial impulse turbine that was model tested under unidirectional steady flow conditions at the IST test rig. The proposed turbine is a new alternative to the self-rectifying axial-flow impulse turbine. In this case, the flow into, and out of, the rotor is radial. The turbine is symmetrical with respect to a plane perpendicular to its axis of rotation. The rotor is surrounded by a pair of radial-flow guide-vane rows. The guide vane rows may be removed from, or inserted into, the flow space by axially displacing the whole guide vane set, so that the downstream guide vanes are prevented from obstructing the flow coming out of the rotor. The acquired results allowed the turbine performance curves to be obtained, The experimental data was also used to validate results from a numerical analysis performed with computational fluid dynamics tools.
