Study on Effect of Adding Booster Runner in Conical Basin : Gravitational Water Vortex Power Plant : A Numerical and Experimental Approach (original) (raw)
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Demand of energy is ever increasing, especially in developing countries. Renewable energy such as hydropower has become one of the most demanded sources of energy for its clean generation. Low head hydropower plant is demanded in area which cannot see grid extension due to difficult geographical terrain and other reasons. Gravitational water vortex power plant is one of such low head turbine in which the mechanical energy of free surface flowing water is converted to kinetic energy by tangentially passing the water to a basin, which forms a water vortex. This study is the analysis of different basin structures which has ability to form a gravitational vortex stream from low head, low flow water streams with the optimum runner position in the basin to maximize the output power. The analysis was first carried out by development of the model using CAD software, SolidWorks and it was simulated in commercial CFD code ANSYS Fluent for the measurement of velocity. Secondly, the result so obtained was experimentally verified by measuring the output power.
Development and Testing of Runner and Conical Basin for Gravitational Water Vortex Power Plant
The Terai region in Nepal has water resources with very low head and medium to high discharge conditions. Hence, the people of the Terai region are not being able to utilize the water resources available near them due to the limitation of technology. This study is intended to serve the purpose of further research of ultra-low head gravitational water vortex turbines useful for power generation in the Terai region. Gravitational water vortex turbine is an ultra-low head turbine which can operate in as low head as 0.7m with similar yield as conventional hydroelectric turbines characterized with positive environmental yield. This study has been carried out in two phases. In the first phase, two different turbines are to designed and fabricated and the performance characteristics of the new turbine are to be compared with that of the installed turbine. The second phase includes the design and fabrication of the conical basin. Experimental tests will be carried out and the performance of the system with the use of a conical basin will compared with that of the system using the cylindrical basin. A site testing also has been carried out to ensure the performance of system.
Computational and Experimental Investigation of Runner for Gravitational Water Vortex Power Plant
2017
The gravitational water vortex power plant (GWVPP) is a new type of low head turbine system in which a channel and basin structure is used to form a vortex, where the rotational energy from the water can be extracted through a runner. This study is focused on the optimization of the runner to improve the efficiency of theGWVPP. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis iscarried out on three different runner designs with straight,twisted and curved blade profiles. ANSYS CFX was used to analyze the fluid flow through the channel, basin,turbine hub and blade, and results were used to evaluatethe efficiency of each of the runner designs. The CFDanalysis showed curved blade profile to be the mostefficient profile, with a peak efficiency of 82%, comparedto 46% for the straight blade runner and 63% for thetwisted blade version. An experimental test of the turbinesystem was carried out to validate the runner analysis, in ascale version of the GWVPP. The testing showed that therunner beha...
Performance Analysis of Booster based Gravitational Water Vortex Power Plant
Journal of the Institute of Engineering
Gravitational Water Vortex Power Plant (GWVPP) is a power generation system that suits for ultralow head streams of water with low flow rate. Due to the simple design, compact structure, and the possibility of local fabrication, it can benefit rural areas for off-grid supply. The purpose of this research is to study the potential of booster based GWVPP. Previous researches concluded the best position of turbine in GWVPP is actually not the maximum head position which eventually does not extract all possible head. This research explores the possibility of adding an extra runner (booster runner) below the main runner in the existing set up for additional power generation. The performance of the booster runner, modelled in CATIA V5R21 was studied computationally using ANSYS 18.1 FLUENT for various boosters with varieties of number of blades, blade inclination angle, height of booster, rotational speed and the blade profile so as to obtain the most suitable design of the booster runner,...
World’s Largest Hydro Conference!At: Portland , OR , USA, 2015
For clean and sustainable development, we need to develop renewable energy sources. At this time, many countries energy policy sets out measures for developing renewable energy technologies to solve the global problems. Gravitational water vortex power plant is one of such renewable low head turbine in which the mechanical energy of free surface flowing water is converted to kinetic energy by tangentially passing the water to a basin, which forms a water vortex. Development and implications of low head turbines similar thus may be a good alternative to light up such areas where the marginal cost of grid extension is greatly increased in rural areas by physical isolation, lower electricity loads, and with scattered low-income consumers. This study is for the development of efficient basin design. We have optimized the conical basin of this plant by changing the four design parameters of basin such as : notch angle , canal height , notch inlet width and cone angle. Different geometric models are developed by using SolidWorks software and simulation is done with the help of Commercial CFD code ANSYS Fluent. Mathematical relationship among these design parameters with the water velocity are established. Thus formed mathematical model is optimized using different optimization tools which is followed by experimental verification by measuring the power output .
A. K. Parwani and PL. Ramkumar (eds.), Recent Advances in Mechanical Infrastructure, Lecture Notes in Intelligent Transportation and Infrastructure, 2020
This paper focuses on micro-hydropower called gravitational water vortex power plant (GWVPP) which operates in ultra-low-head requirement (0.7-3 m) and is used in off-grid energy generation in rural areas. GWVPP is a new type of hydropower system in which a channel and a basin structure are used to form a water vortex, where the rotational energy from the water is extracted from runner at the center of the vortex. In this study, inlet and outlet geometrical conditions, specifically basin diameter and outlet diameter, of a recently acclaimed efficient conical basin design are found out. Different geometrical CAD models are developed by using SolidWorks software, and simulation is done with the help of commercial CFD code ANSYS CFX. Then, the geometrical relationship among these parameters is also analyzed and established. This result is finally validated through experimental testing of four different types of basin with distinct geometry.
Simulation of Propeller Runner for Cylindrical Basin of Gravitational Water Vortex Power Plant
Advances in Engineering and Technology: An International Journal
The gravitational water vortex power plant is an emerging technology of power generation from water vortex in a small amount. It can generate electricity in a low head of range (0.7-2m). This system is very simple and requires less keep-up. This research aims to develop the propeller type runner which gives optimum efficiency and cylindrical basin suitable for this propeller runner in GWVPP. The research has been conducted by developing a new propeller runner and cylindrical basin considering the top surface open as the atmosphere. Blade angle, discharge hole diameter of the basin, the position of runner, and rpm are optimized on CFD-based optimization. After the CFD analysis, the optimum blade angle was 43º, exit hole diameter of this basin was found 175 mm which is 20% of the basin diameter. The optimum height was found 785mm which is 65.42% of the total height. And the efficiency of the optimized system was 23.639 % at 40 rpm.
Effects of Geometrical Parameters in Gravitational Water Vortex Turbines with Conical Basin
Journal of Renewable Energy
Gravitational Water Vortex Power Plant (GWVPP) is an appropriate means to convert kinetic energy of water to rotational mechanical energy at the very low head site. This study aims to establish a basic reference for the design of the runner for the Gravitational Water Vortex Turbine (GWVT) with a conical basin. Seven different geometrical parameters have been identified for runner design, and the effect of these parameters on the system efficiency has been studied numerically and experimentally. The effect of these parameters has been studied over the range of speed with torque. The results from performance tests of these runners suggest that runner height is the most significant parameter to be considered in the design of a turbine runner for GWVPP with a conical basin. The results show that the efficiency of GWVT has improved up to 47.85% as obtained from experiments.
CFD evaluation of performance of Gravitational Water Vortex Turbine at different runner position
2nd International Conference on Engineering and Technology, 2019
A free vortex is a region in which flow revolves around an axis line that requires a small head to form, about 0.7 m-2 m. In Gravitational water vortex turbine, water assuming to be non-rotational and inviscid passes through an open channel and enters the basin tangentially where it forms a powerful vortex. Then, the dynamic force of water is transmitted by the vortex to the turbine via mixed flow, impulse and reaction, phenomena. It can be a promising cheap and effective solution to compliment recent strives for renewable energy technologies. This paper deals with design and development of a prototype Gravitational water vortex turbine and analysis with computational and experimental methods. Initially, the computational method focused on determining maximum tangential velocity of water achievable in the setup without turbine. And further computational analysis was carried out for the setup with turbine to determine performance characteristics by adjusting the runner heights in three positions. Then the experimental analysis was performed with runner placed at three different heights. The experimental and numerical analysis showed best efficiency and maximum RPM (revolutions per minute), for the given prototype, when runner was at lowermost position i.e. 84 cm from top of the conical basin.