Investigation on Reverse Characteristics of Centrifugal Pump In Turbine Mode: A Comparative Study By An Experimentation And Simulation (original) (raw)

In the biotic world for human life next to basic needs, water plays a vital role for human survival and sustainability. Water is available in plenty, in our earth which covers 70 percent of the surface area. In that, nearly 98 percent of water in ocean, seas and rivers only. Less than 2 percent of water is used for all sort of human needs. Many rivers originated from the mountains crosses various types of terrains and finally reaching the sea. Between the start and end, the water stream possesses huge level of potential and kinetic energy. Many of our power engineers was not attracted towards these natural penstock in form of water streams which can be able to operate mini and micro hydro power plants. In north and northeastern areas of India, particularly in Himalayan range more than 6000 water streams are available, where large scale of hydro power project are not feasible. But the mini and micro level hydro power plants are possible. The success of any project is incorporated with the cost, in the way the hydraulic turbine cost also too high. In this perception this research paper an ordinary centrifugal pump was modified into the hydraulic turbine. This Pump-as-turbine (PAT) was studied experimentally and the numerical model was simulated and compared. The efficacy of PAT was 33.52 % with the head and discharge of 40 m and 45.40 Kg/s respectively. For the same head the PAT numerical model predicts the efficacy of 44.87 %.