Water Turbine Research Articles

Performance assessment of lift-based turbine for small-scale power generation in water pipelines using OpenFOAM

In-pipe water turbines have begun to gain interest for harvesting power on a small scale from pipe networks. However, few studies have addressed the feasibility of installing spherical lift-based helical-bladed turbines in a water supply network. Points such as the pressure drop and generated power remain unexplored. In this study, a three-dimensional numerical model, based on OpenFOAM, is used to investigate the performance of the spherical lift-based helical-bladed in-pipe water turbine. The study aims to evaluate how the geometric properties of this turbine affect its performance in terms of power and efficiency, and the hydraulics of pipe flow in terms of pressure drop. The study considers a turbine of diameter 600 mm, with the following geometric properties: number of helical blades 3, 4 and 5; blade chord length 10%, 15% and 20% of turbine diameter D; blade helicity 0°, 60° and 120°; and pitch angle −6°, −3°, 0° and 3°. These parameters are analyzed at tip speed ratios (TSRs) of 2, 3 and 4. The results show that the five-blade turbine yields a power of 1300 W, while the three-blade turbine yields only 870 W, at an optimum TSR of 3. A change in the chord length of 50% (from 0.10D to 0.15D) increases the turbine power by 88.4% and efficiency by 40% for the same TSR. A further change to 0.20D gives no significant improvement in efficiency or power output. An increase in the helical angle from 0° to 120° results in a 22.8% reduction in turbine power. The turbine achieves the maximum power output of 1350 W at zero pitch angle, with a corresponding efficiency of 27%. The maximum head loss observed is 1.6 m, which represents 2.7% of the total head in the pipe. Solidity has a more pronounced effect on head losses than helicity and pitch angle.

Techno-Economic Evaluations: An Innovative of Hydraulic Reaction Turbine for Pico-Hydro Generation System

The primary goal of this paper is to evaluate an innovative Z-Blade turbine technology and its potential implications for production costs and manufacturing techniques. From literatures, conventional pico-hydro technologies with a capability of less than 5kW are getting more and more attention as good alternatives to environmentally friendly power generation, but there are more expensive and complex for small power generation and small domestic consumer level. Therefore, a Z-Blade reaction turbine technical and environmental processes as well as financial research are described in-depth. The methods for a Z-blade turbine design and implementation are described here, and also the material using for the Z-Blade turbine is a grey PVC pipe. Moreover, empirical description, designation, costing, and correlation are employed in the process of critically analysing the simple reaction water turbine novels. Also in this article, the manufacture of the Split Reaction Turbine (SRT) and Cross Pipe Turbine (CPT) was re-evaluated to take into consideration the technological and economic factors as well as the difficulties of both turbines. In the meantime, low-head, low-flow water resources used to examine additional features of Z-Blade. Theoretically, such a platform for hydro production is cost - effective and has a simplistic design methodology with a total cost of USD76 that equates to 7.6% of the overall installation cost and worthy of output up to 115W of mechanical energy.

Performance and feasibility study of a new hybrid solar water heater integrated a small water turbine

AbstractThe production of thermal energy by solar water heater (SWH) systems is an idea, which has been analyzed and applied for many years. This paper presents a numerical simulation of a new hybrid SWH, in which two tubular thermoelectric generators (TTEGs) and a small water turbine are used to generate more additional electrical energy. The small water turbine is installed between the outlet of the four absorber tubes and the inlet of the water tank in order to generate more electrical energy from the cold‐water motion. Furthermore, the use of a temperature adjustment concept and an optical concentrator shows many significant improvements on the thermal and electrical performance of the new system. Our main results shows that the overall maximum electrical power of two TTEGs was approximately 348.073 W, corresponding to 2.72% of their overall maximum electrical efficiency. Also, the maximum thermal efficiency of the new system reached to 86.09% with an overall hot water quantity of 1548.57 L/d. The electrical energy produced by the small water turbine is about 89.467 W for a cold‐water flow rate of 3 kg/s.

Optimization of inverse-Prandtl of Dissipation in standard k-ε Turbulence Model for Predicting Flow Field of Crossflow Turbine

Despite the successful use of the Standard model in simulating turbulent flow for many industrially relevant flows, the model is still less accurate for a range of important problems, such as unconfined flows, curved boundary layers, rotating flows, and recirculating flows. As part of the authors’ effort to extend the model applicability and reliability, this paper aims to study the effects of diffusivity parameter called the turbulent Prandtl number of dissipation rate () on the Standard model performance for predicting recirculating flow in a crossflow water turbine. The value of this parameter was varied from 0.5 to 1.5 in the CFD simulations, and the results were compared to the more sophisticated model, namely the RNG , which has been first qualitatively validated by an experimental result. In addition, the parameter value was also adjusted using the Multi-Linear Regression (MLR) method ranging from 0.42 to 1.5 to complement the CFD simulations. It was observed that reducing the value is effective in minimizing the average deviation of the turbulence properties concerning the RNG model. However, the adjusted model still faces difficulty in accurately predicting the pressure and velocity field. Based on this result, adjusting the constant in the Standard turbulence model has the potential to improve the model performance for modelling recirculating flow in terms of the turbulence properties, but still needs further investigation for the flow properties.

Frequency modelling and dynamic identification of cross-flow water turbines

The cross-flow turbines cover from the point of view hydraulic power the running domain of some well-known turbines such as Pelton, Francis or Kaplan. This type of turbine has a simple construction, long life and low execution cost, which makes it very suitable for on and off grid small to medium hydro power plants. It is quite difficult to establish an exact theoretical dynamic model for this type of turbines, due to the complex flow phenomenon (bi phase flow water and air). In order to obtain the exact dynamic behavior of the hydraulic machine, experimental dynamic identification will be done. In automation, the dynamic properties, represent the fundamental characteristic of the object which must be regulated. When the dynamic properties of the regulated object are obtained experimentally, we analyze the characteristics of the transient regime, which appears because of the application at the system inlet of some stochastic or deterministic signals (sine waves for our case). The hydraulic turbine is modeled as an informational quadrupole having the inlet parameters the movement of the wicket gate and the turbine head and outlet parameters the torque and the speed. In this paper it will be presented the frequency modelling of the cross-flow turbine and the validation of the mathematical model through experimental dynamic identification.

ANALISIS STATIC STRESS BEARING PADA TURBIN ALIRAN PIPA MENGGUNAKAN SIMULASI FUSION 360

Sewer pipe water turbines are made with the aim of helping the development of new renewable energy in Indonesia. Pipe water turbines utilize unused liquid waste and convert it into electricity. In this turbine certainly has a shaft, where the shaft certainly requires bearings / bearings. Bearing is one of the components that play a role in keeping the engine shaft to keep rotating on its axis and other components on its path. An example of bearing use is in turbines. The purpose of this study is to determine the calculation of stress in bearings caused by static loads or forces exerted slowly on bearings on pipe water turbine shaft. The static load used is 30 N with AISI 304 bearing material. From the results of static stress analysis simulation obtained the maximum voltage bearing results in withstanding static loads on pipe flow water turbines.

Dual power sources with photovoltaic and small water turbine for generating electric supported flood mitigation

This study aims to investigate the electric generation systems used for flood relief by integrated photovoltaic with a small water turbine. Solar panel type of polycrystalline by size of 330 Wp and area of 2 m2 was parallel connected to the small water turbine with dimension of 1.24 m width and 2 m length. The Bankie wheel turbine has 1 m diameter with 12 blades. The flat blades has area of 0.30 m2 constructing on the floating tubes. The floating tubes fabricated across the wheel turbine dues to protect the turbine from flooding debris and it control the turbulent stream to be the laminar stream. The solar panel fabricated as the roof of the water turbine on the iron structure dimension of 1 m width, 2 m length and 1.40 m height. The photovoltaic was tested under
 the conditions of solar intensity ranged from 976.63 W m–2 to 1,139 W m–2 and ambient temperature of 29 oC. In standard conditions of solar intensity, the efficiency of photovoltaic obtained by 16.30% and fill factor of 0.96. Deep cycle battery 45 Ah and DC/AC inverter 12 V 500 Wp were connected to the generating system. The gearing ratio of wheel turbine to generator’s axle was 1:7 to generate electric from water stream. The relationship of turbine rotation and the generator rotation was performed in laboratory experiment that found to be linear. The voltage obtained by 9.30 V at the generator rotation of 174 rpm. The power producing from photovoltaic and small water turbine obtained total load by 350 W for lamps, fans, and mobile chargers. The dual power sources can be used for producing electrical supply whenever people islanding in flood disaster.

Perancangan Pembangkit Listrik Pikohydro Dengan Tipe Turbin Screw

The screw type water turbine is one type of water turbine that has the potential to generate electricity on a small scale that is environmentally friendly, where this screw type water turbine is very suitable for rivers and irrigation flows in the territory of Indonesia because the use or operation of this turbine only requires low turbine head, looking at the potential for irrigation river water flow with a discharge range of 0.01-0.1 m3/s located in the lowlands in a Karawang district, it is possible to install or apply this screw type water turbine. In this study aims to be able to utilize the source of irrigation flow so that it can be converted into a source of electrical energy that can be utilized by local residents and for lighting on roads that are still poorly lit. In the process of designing a screw type water turbine, mechanical calculations are carried out to determine thedimensions of the turbine blades, turbine shaft, transmission systems such as pulleys and belts, as well as the power that can be generated by the turbine, with a relative head between 0.5 meters, 0.75 meters, and 0.9 meters and determine the correct components. The results of this calculation are obtained in the form of output power from each different head height for head 0.5, the power obtained is 220.89795 watts, for the 0.75 m head, the power is 394.29519 watts, and for the height 0.9, the output power is 356.13926 watts, the results of the design will then be made and will be realized.

Optimization of Reaction Typed Water Turbine in Very Low Head Water Resources for Pico Hydro

The purpose of this research is to investigate the dominant parameters that influence the optimum performance of reaction typed turbine at very low water head. The concepts of conservation of mass, momentum and energy are utilised to explore performance characteristics using a graphical technique. Parametric analysis of the governing equation and experimental results were performed to show that the turbine diameter and nozzle exit area has a dynamic response to mass flow rate, angular speed, output power and efficiency. Depending on the nozzle diameter of (0.01 m, 0.006 m, and 0.008 m) and turbine pipe size with (diameter of 0.025 m and 0.015 m), six versions of prototype turbine Z-blade turbine were produced. All the turbines have been tested at 100 kPa static water pressures and below. According to a variety of experimental data for all types of turbines, the turbine diameter and nozzle exit area have a substantial impact on turbine performance, especially at high water heads. Despite differences in turbine length and nozzle exit area, more than 90 % of the pattern curves for rotational speed, water flow rate, and mechanical power were identical. Overall, the Z-blade turbine Type B outperforms, resulting in higher turbine efficiency at low head and low flow water condition.

Graph neural network based hydraulic turbine data stream prediction

Abstract As a kind of green energy with mature technology, hydropower energy is more and more widely used in our real life. As the core equipment of a hydropower station, hydraulic turbine units will experience varying degrees of vibration and aging during the process of power generation. Due to the complex internal structure and the interaction between different components, the analysis and prediction of the relevant operating data of the water turbine unit has important application value. This paper proposes a graph neural network framework for multivariate data stream prediction. In this method, a graph learning module is designed to automatically extract the one-way relationship between different components of the turbine unit. In addition, the mix-hop propagation layer and expansion layer are designed to capture the spatial and temporal correlations in hydraulic turbine data stream. Experiments show that the proposed method has higher accuracy comparing with the existing methods.

A microgrid for the secluded Paana Theertham Kani settlement in India

Abstract Recognizing the importance of electricity as a driver of rapid economic growth and poverty alleviation, India aims to provide access to all households by 2030. Despite the best efforts of state and federal governments to meet consumers’ electrical needs, budget constraints, inefficient operations and massive loan burdens have hampered their efforts. Aside from these concerns, rural India, which accounts for 65% of the population, is plagued by a slew of issues, including low electricity demand, a low load factor and the expectation of cheap electricity. These concerns bind the authorities’ hands, preventing them from moving forward. As a result, this project aims to model an autonomous microgrid system that integrates three potential renewable-energy systems, namely wind, sun and hydrokinetic, to provide electricity for a remote society. It starts with assessing the region’s electricity needs with its inhabitants. The HOMER Pro platform creates a cost-effective microgrid based on the demand estimate. The components of the microgrid include 6.4-kW small wind turbine (SWT) groups, 4.4-kW solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, a 5-kW hydrokinetic water turbine, battery storage and a converter. The project is unique in that it considers site-specific initial capital costs, replacement costs, and operation and maintenance costs of the renewable-energy systems, and it does not include any environmentally hazardous energy system. The successful optimization results in terms of levelized energy costs are $0.0538, $0.0614 and $0.0427/kWh for wind, solar and hydrokinetic components, respectively, without any environmental issues.

Design and Prototyping of Electronic Load Controller for Pico Hydropower System

A hydroelectric power plant is an electrical energy generator that utilizes water energy to drive a water turbine coupled to a generator. The main problem in hydroelectric power plants is the frequency and voltage fluctuations in the generator due to fluctuations in consumer loads. The purpose of this research is to make a prototype of the Electronic Load Controller (ELC) system at the Pico Hydropower Plant. The main part of ELC is the frequency sensor and gating system. The first part is made by a Zero Crossing Detector, which detects the generator frequency. The gating system was developed with TRIAC. The method used is the addition of a complement load which is controlled by delaying the TRIAC. Load control is intended to maintain the stability of the electrical energy produced by the generator. The PID algorithm is used in frequency control. The results of the frequency sensor accuracy test are 99.78%, and the precision is 99.99%. The ELC system can adjust the frequency automatically by setting the firing delay on the TRIAC to distribute unused power by consumer loads to complementary loads so that the load used remains stable. The ELC is tested with increasing and decreasing load. The proposed ELC gives a stable frequency at 50Hz. Whereas at the first test, the mean voltage is 183V, and in the second test is 182.17V.

RANCANG BANGUN PROTOTYPE HYDRO TURBINE JENIS CROSS-FLOW UNTUK PERKOTAAN

The problem of fossil fuel crisis, both petroleum and coal, and the phenomenon of climatechange due to global warming, trigger the use of renewable energy that can overcome these problems.Cross-flow water turbine is one of the machine that can be used to produce small scale electric energy insmall scope. This turbine can be used in urban areas to assist industrial activities and their usefulness indaily life. The use of the right materials and strong construction can produce a good shape so that thiswater turbine is not only make efficient energy but also efficient and ergonomic in its use. This study isconducted theoretically to a cross-flow turbine which assumed to operate at 10m water height with 1.4L/s, outer diameter 150mm and 75mm thickness. The turbine consist of 15 blades with angle of attack ofthe blades is 30o. The results show that the turbine generate 119 Watt

Investigating barotrauma in juvenile salmon passing through a very low head turbine using response surface methodology

Although hydropower is a clean source of energy, in some cases, it can jeopardize the life of some species of riverine fish. Very Low Head (VLH) water turbine is an innovative design that aims at reducing the adverse effects of such hydroelectric facilities. In this research, two methodologies are integrated to investigate barotrauma in juvenile salmons passing through this particular turbine. First, to quantify barotrauma, we implement a method known as BioPA (Biological Performance Assessment) by combining the results of some laboratory experiments on juvenile Chinook salmon moving through a simulated turbine passage with the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation of the flow field in this environment. In the second part, we added surrogate-based modeling as a tool, which enabled us to study the effects of two geometrical parameters on the environmental performance of the VLH turbine with low computational costs. The results indicate a significant dependency between the installation angle of the VLH turbine and the severity of the barotrauma of this particular fish. In addition, further investigations suggest that the region near the middle of blades is the safest for fish in the case of decompression.

산간 지역 마이크로 수력 발전설비 구축

Hydropower energy is well known as clean renewable energy. In particular, hydroelectric energy has a great advantage in that it has high efficiency compared to other energy sources. In addition, it is possible to obtain stable and constant output at all times due to its high operating rate. Compared to other countries, Korea has mountainous terrain and many small rivers. In these sites, it will be possible to build a power generation facility with a micro-level output rather than a high power generation output.<BR>The most important factors in determining generator output are flow and head. In order to operate the generator most efficiently, a constant flow rate must be maintained at all times, and the amount of head must be be the same. In general, small rivers in rural areas have large fluctuations in flow rate. Therefore, the selection of the water turbine is very important.<BR>In this study, a cross-flow water turbine that can easily respond to changes in flow rate selected, and a squirrel cage induction generator was applied in consideration of economic feasibility and maintenance when selecting a generator.<BR>This research team compared and analyzed the difference between design and operation through simulation and measurement of the power and power factor obtained from the induction generator when it is installed and operated in the field after determining the output considering the flow rate and the head.

Design, Analysis, and Fabrication of Water Turbine for Slow-Moving Water

Abstract The energy crisis of the modern era may be overcome by hydrokinetic energy, the most readily and free source of energy available, to provide basic electricity needs to remote and urban areas at a low cost. The kinetic energy of flowing water at low speed could be extracted effectively by designing an appropriate design of the blade, as the turbine’s performance is dependent upon the shape of its blade. In this study, the wind turbine model with some modifications was used to design a blade for the hydrokinetic turbine. The horizontal axis turbine model with propeller type configuration was selected for obtaining higher efficiency. The optimum hydrofoil was selected and designed with an optimal twist angle for the maximum energy extraction process. The model was designed in three-dimensional (3D) modeling software solidworks, and then the power analysis was carried out through numerical simulations using the commercial computational fluid dynamics package ansys fluent. The power output was analyzed with a different number of blades, and performance curves were generated for the most efficient system. The calculations exhibited that for 1.5 m/s rated speed of water with the rotor diameter of 0.6096 m provides the rated power of approximately 150 W at 110 RPMs. The power curve of the turbine was analyzed for the selection of an efficient Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator, and a direct drive system was preferred to reduce the weight and losses. The turbine model was 3D printed for testing and experimentation. The analytical efficiency calculated was 30.52%, and the experimental efficiency achieved was 28.24%. This study shows that the optimum design of hydrokinetic turbines could be integrated into series to provide energy to remote areas where the construction of dams and other resources are not available.

Real-World Data-Driven Machine-Learning-Based Optimal Sensor Selection Approach for Equipment Fault Detection in a Thermal Power Plant

Due to growing electricity demand, developing an efficient fault-detection system in thermal power plants (TPPs) has become a demanding issue. The most probable reason for failure in TPPs is equipment (boiler and turbine) fault. Advance detection of equipment fault can help secure maintenance shutdowns and enhance the capacity utilization rates of the equipment. Recently, an intelligent fault diagnosis based on multivariate algorithms has been introduced in TPPs. In TPPs, a huge number of sensors are used for process maintenance. However, not all of these sensors are sensitive to fault detection. The previous studies just relied on the experts’ provided data for equipment fault detection in TPPs. However, the performance of multivariate algorithms for fault detection is heavily dependent on the number of input sensors. The redundant and irrelevant sensors may reduce the performance of these algorithms, thus creating a need to determine the optimal sensor arrangement for efficient fault detection in TPPs. Therefore, this study proposes a novel machine-learning-based optimal sensor selection approach to analyze the boiler and turbine faults. Finally, real-world power plant equipment fault scenarios (boiler water wall tube leakage and turbine electric motor failure) are employed to verify the performance of the proposed model. The computational results indicate that the proposed approach enhanced the computational efficiency of machine-learning models by reducing the number of sensors up to 44% in the water wall tube leakage case scenario and 55% in the turbine motor fault case scenario. Further, the machine-learning performance is improved up to 97.6% and 92.6% in the water wall tube leakage and turbine motor fault case scenarios, respectively.

Pengaruh Ketinggian dan Panjang Saluran Air Laut terhadap Daya yang Dihasilkan pada Prototype Tidal Barrage

Kebutuhan energi listrik di Indonesia sangatlah penting mengingat keterbatasan sumber daya alam dan minimnya tenaga kerja membuat Indonesia sangat butuh peningkatan pembangkit listrik. Salah satu sumber energi yang dapat di konversi menjadi energi listrik adalah pasang surut air laut menggunakan metode tidal barrage. Penerapan Energi ini masih sangat sedikit di Indonesia tetapi ada beberapa wilayah yang berpotensi untuk diterapkannya pembangkit tersebut . Pembangkit listrik ini memanfaatkan energi tenaga pasang surut air laut untuk energi potensial yang terkandung dalam perbedaan tinggi dan rendahnya air laut karena fenomena alam yang terjadi dengan cara menjebak air pada bendungan dan kemudian menggerakkan turbin air yang dihubungkan dengan generator agar dapat menghasilkan energi listrik. Terkait dengan berapa output daya yang dihasilkan dapat diketahui dengan cara melihat pada ketinggian berapa level air yang menggerakkan turbin. Pembangkit ini termasuk jenis pembangkit ramah lingkungan karena dapat meminalisir kerusakan ekosistem alam dan bendugan, dapat dimanfaatkan untuk berbagai aktivitas. Untuk lebih mudah memahami metode ini maka perlunya dibuat prototype untuk mengetahui berbagai factor yang mempengaruhi daya yang dihasilakan pada pembangkit ini. Dari hasil penelitian didapatkan bahwa prototype Pembangkit Listrik Tenaga Pasang Surut Air Laut menggunakan metode tidal barrage pada ketinggian air pasang maksimum 26 cm dapat membangkitkan arus sebesar 0,068 watt pada saat tidak diberi beban dan 0,061 watt pada saat diberi beban LED 1,7 V dan 30 mA. Didapatkan juga hasil pada panjang saluran air maksimal 20 cm dapat membangkitkan daya sebesar 0,059 watt.

Evaluation of the flow velocity distribution in the intake structure of a small hydropower plant

Intake structures are an important part of small hydropower plants, which affect the water flow, turbine operation and total power of power plant. The flow quality is significantly influenced by the flow homogeneity in the intakes, as the inhomogeneous flow velocity distribution has a negative impact to the operation of the hydropower plants, such as uneven load on the mechanical parts which leads to decrease in efficiency and faster aging of turbine parts. The paper describes the flow assessment in the intake structures of a low-pressure small hydropower plant (the Stará Ľubovňa small hydropower plant) with respect to the flow homogeneity. The River2D, 2D numerical modelling software, has been used for evaluation of flow in the intakes. Flow simulations for the current state of operation have been modelled. In assessing the current situation of intake structure, scenarios were modelled. The boundary conditions were changed to approximate the various variants of hydropower plant operation. The simulations proved the negative impact of the construction solution for the flow conditions in the intakes. This appears mostly in profiles of coarse racks and screenings where is a significant unequal distribution of flow and significant deviation in flow velocities from the recommended values. The simulations results were evaluated in turbine intake profiles (profile of screenings), where the distribution of flow velocities was evaluated. The flow velocities in this profile were compared with the average flow velocity in the turbine intake profile. In order to optimize the velocity distribution in the intake structure, the modification of the intake shapes has been proposed. The subject of the proposal was to improve flow parameters. Simulations were created for the modification that were subsequently reviewed. The modification was compared to the current situation of the intakes.

Multi-objective optimization of a dual energy-driven solid oxide fuel cell-based power plant

Regarding the ability of solid oxide fuel cell-based energy conversion systems and modifying their design structure, the current study comprehensively investigates the potential of empowering a novel integrated solid oxide fuel cell-based power plant via liquefied natural gas together with geothermal energy, addressing this matter. Likewise, the newly designed system embraces an efficient design through multi-heat recovery based on two energy sources. In this regard, the sensitivity analysis and optimization (using a genetic algorithm) methods are utilized to assess the proposed system, taking into account the energy, exergy, exergo-economic, and environmental perspectives. The results indicate that as the current density of the cell increases, the net output power and energy efficiency of the system enhance. Among considered decision variables, geothermal water temperature and turbine pressure have the severest impacts on the output power and the corresponding unit cost. Moreover, optimization results reveal that the air heat exchanger and turbine have the highest exergy destruction costs with values of 4800 $/year and 4500 $/year, respectively. Furthermore, it is found that the emissions’ cost (0.000154 $/s) would be around 2% lower when the system is optimized by minimizing unit product cost rather than maximizing the energy or exergy efficiency of the system.