A Pelton turbine is characterized by a water jet which is impacting rotating buckets. The main goal of this study is to understand the phenomena which are impacting the jet and its interaction with the bucket. This study was considering two main works. One is considering experiments which allow determining the jet fragmentation. The second part considers development of a numerical code able to reproduce phenomena linked to Pelton jet fragmentation. The experimental part succeeds to associate Pelton jet behavior with mode of jet fragmentation (turbulent dispersion) and shows the impact of hydraulic roughness on Pelton turbine performances. The access to experimental results from a project involving this PhD work, demonstrates the role of the inlet velocity/turbulence profile on the jet fragmentation. The numerical part used the SPH-ALE (Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics - Arbitrary Lagrange Euler) method to implement physical models linked with jet fragmentation. This choice was done because of its ability to predict pressure fields resulting of the interaction of a water jet and a rotating bucket. A multiphase model was developed based on a modification of the velocity of the interface of Riemann problem. This model does not diffuse the interface and recovers continuity of normal velocity and pressure at the interface between both fluids. Surface tension effect was implemented through an adaptation of the CSF (Continuum Surface Force) model and through amodel called LLPC for Laplace Law Pressure Correction. A study of the computational methods to determine the interface curvature was performed for the integration of the pressure jump in the Riemann solver. Validation was done on academicals test cases as gravity waves, dam breakor droplet oscillations. The numerical code was parallelized to perform large numerical simulations.To conclude, the numerical code integrates physical phenomena which were shown as important in the experiments. The developments will try to perform jet simulation with inlet condition which will be representative of flow conditions at the outlet of a Pelon turbine injector.
