Abstract: Francis turbine is the most widely used turbine type in hydropower stations. The hydraulic de-sign of the turbine affects the power benefit and stable operation of the power stations. The paper has out-lined the research and application of the hydraulic design for Francis turbine in hydraulic machinery depart-ment of IWHR in the past 30 years.The first domestic flow pattern observation research of Francis turbine was developed by the Department of Hydraulic Machinery, IWHR, to explore the law of internal flow and pressure pulsation, and the hydraulic stability representation of the turbine was established. The mathemati-cal model for inner flow field of turbine, the innovative design approach of runner blades, and the hydrau-lic design method of passage component were proposed. The constrained multi-objective optimization hydrau-lic design system of Francis turbine was developed to implement the tailor-made solutions of the Francis turbine. The technology of double-runner for wet and dry season has successfully solved the problem for run-of-river hydropower plants in which the flow rate has huge difference and the turbine cannot run well between the wet and dry season. The technical processes and solutions for hydropower plant renovation were systematically summarized. The research results have been successfully used in more than 200 new and ren-ovation hydropower plants around the world. The great social and economic benefits have been achieved. The technological progress of hydropower industry has greatly been promoted.

Keywords：Francis turbine；hydraulic model；optimization design；technical renovation

(Journal of China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Vol. 16, No. 5, 2018)