Optimization Of Cross - Flow Turbine For Pico - Hydro System

Juhari, Ab. Razak (2013) Optimization Of Cross - Flow Turbine For Pico - Hydro System. Project Report. UTeM, Melaka, Malaysia. (Submitted)

Text (24 Pages) Optimization Of Cross - Flow Turbine For Pico - Hydro System 24 Pages.pdf - Submitted Version Download (253kB)

Abstract

One of the main obstacles of rural electrification programs in most of the develop countries nowadays is to replace the traditional usage of power sources such as generator and firewood. The ever increasing of fuel price recently created more burdens to the villagers to maintain the application of generator. On the other hand, the usage of firewood to light up houses and for cooking purposes resulted unhealthy condition to the communities such as respiratory and eyesight problems. Therefore, it is necessary to find out suitable and reliable alternative renewable energy to provide cheap and clean power source. Since most of the rural settlements are located near to the rivers, hydro based is suggested to replace these traditional methods of producing the power supply. In this particular case, the application of Pico-hydro turbine is preferred due to its cost effectiveness. Pico-hydro turbine can produce power output of maximum 5 kW and can be operated under low head with low flow rate of water. In this research, cross-flow turbine, a type of pico-hydro turbine which capable to operate under low head has been chose. This type of turbine does not required expensive construction and huge reservoir for water storage. In this short-term project, the cross-flow turbine will be fabricated in-house. At the end of the research, the fabricated cross-flow turbine should be able to run under low head with low flow rate condition. From the CFD analysis results, the maximum velocity of the streamline for flow rate 50 l/s was 9.742 m/s. On the other hand, the factor of safety of the main structure for the cross-flow turbine was 255.819 and the factor safety of the runner blades was 15.7204.

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