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Hydrofoil is widely used in hydraulic machinery, the complex shear flow and wake vortex with it can cause energy dissipation of system, affecting the stable operation of the unit. This paper takes the guide vane of a Francis turbine as the research object, and adopts the SST k − ω turbulence model to simulate the complex unsteady flow in a three-dimensional hydrofoil-channel. Entropy production theory is introduced to evaluate the energy dissipation. The effects of attack angle, gap ratio and Reynolds number on the flow loss are studied. The results show that: (1) In the hydrofoil-channel, the dissipation caused by the velocity gradient always dominates the irregular flow of fluid field. So the loss caused by the turbulent dissipation term is the main source of the loss in mainstream zone, accounting for more than 95%, while the loss caused by the viscous dissipation term accounts for only about 2% of the total loss, which can be almost ignored; (2) Changing the attack angle have a significant effect on the flow separation of the suction surface and the shear effect in the wake vortex zone, causing the energy loss to fluctuate accordingly. And 2.5° is the optimal attack angle. On this working condition, the loss decreases to the minimum value of 2.2714W/K and 0.1432 m, a decrease of 57% compared to the initial value; (3) The bottom boundary of channel suppress the development of wing tip vortex, reducing gap ratio will reduce the loss caused by wake vortex to some extent. Among them, S = 0.3 is the optimal gap ratio. Under this operating condition, the loss is 2.2941W/K and 0.1447m, a decrease of 56% compared to the initial value; (4) Affected by flow separation and wake vortexes, more than 80% of energy loss occurs in the middle and downstream zones. The effects of attack angle, gap ratio and Reynolds number on the fluid field are different. Increasing attack angle and flow velocity significantly exacerbate the flow separation and shear flow, while reducing gap ratio would inhibit the adverse flow in downstream wing tip vortex zone. • Applying entropy production theory to energy dissipation in hydrofoil fluid fields. • Discovering the dominant role of velocity fluctuations in turbulence. • The effects of attack angle, gap ratio, Reynolds number on vortex structure and energy loss are discussed, and the optimal conditions are given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]