Design and Analysis of a vertical axis turbine for energy harvesting in urban water supply system (in-pipe micro hydro turbine)

In the case of water leakage control systems used in urban water source tanks, constant  and efficient power supply plays an important role. The water leakage control device  for green energy sources is becoming a promising way to reduce dependency on  conventional chemica

Project Title

Design and Analysis of a vertical axis turbine for energy harvesting in urban water supply system (in-pipe micro hydro turbine)

Project Area of Specialization

Mechanical Engineering

Project Summary

In the case of water leakage control systems used in urban water source tanks, constant 
and efficient power supply plays an important role. The water leakage control device 
for green energy sources is becoming a promising way to reduce dependency on 
conventional chemical batteries. In this plant, an inline vertical cross-flow turbine will 
be planned to harvest the possible hydropower to provide power to the water monitoring 
systems within water supply pipes. Specifically, to evaluate an appropriate model, 
computational investigations would be conducted on the block shapes of a water turbine 
device. The influence of tip clearance on the output of the turbine is that the reversing 
torque on the returned blades can be decreased by a smaller tip clearance and the 
pressure drop through the runner can be improved to boost turbine performance. In 
addition, to prevent excess water head loss, a self-adjustable vane is required. The 
findings of the simulation results in the literature review show that the proposed self-adjustable vane is effective in reducing the water head loss to approximately 5 m at high flow velocities (1.5-2.0 m/s). 

Project Objectives

There are two aims of this study. To help control design for mini and micro hydropower systems, the first and main one is to build an object-oriented vertical axis turbine model. In order to capture the relationship between hydraulic and mechanical energy, the model utilizes water flow and pressure balance equations. The detailed explanation of how the water flow and turbine torque are influenced by the blade angles of the turbine runner is a specific feature of the model. The second objective of the thesis is to show how hydropower control systems can be constructed using the vertical turbine model.
In this analysis, by means of various curves, we will also demonstrate the relationship between torque, water flow velocity, power and effectiveness.

Project Implementation Method

The key idea of this project is to integrate a DN100 T-joint into the DN250 pipe,then attach a cross-flow runner that connects to a generator through a shaft into the pipe to collect hydropower via the T-joint and pass the power to the generator. After that the generated electricity will be deposited after rectification in chargeable batteries. Blocks fixed on the inner wall of the pipe are needed because the blocks will allow more water to flow through the runner, increase the water velocity that passes through the runner and decrease the water resistance on the returned blades [1]. Within the municipal water mains, the flow velocity is about 1.2-2.0m/s and the average velocity is about 1.5m/s . So, the velocity of the design flow on the design point is set at 1.5 m/s. The turbine design begins with the measurement of the geometrical parameters of the runner and the block form design. 

Benefits of the Project

A second-order-accurate finite-volume discretization scheme was used to run 
the simulations in ANSYS Fluent, and the maximum residual is set to 10?5
. Although the outlet boundary condition is set as a pressure outlet with a pressure equal to ambient pressure, the inlet velocity is known as the inlet boundary condition of the inlet face. The boundary state of the wall of the turbine and blades is set as a smooth non-slip wall. In addition, symmetry is set as the boundary state of the symmetrical plane.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

SolidWorks is a solid modeler, and uses a parametric feature-based approach that was initially developed by PTC (Crew / Pro Engineer) to create models and assemblies. This software is written on a Parasolid granule. Parameters can be either numerical parameters, such as line length or circle diameter, or geometric parameters, such as tangent, parallel, centered, horizontal or vertical etc. to capture the design intent. An outline consists of geometry such as points, lines, arcs, cones (except hyperbola) and splints. Dimensions are added to the outline to define the size and location of the ¹geometry. Relationships are used to describe characteristics such as fitness, harmony, length, and concentration. The parametric nature of SolidWorks means that dimensions and relationships drive geometry, not the other way around. The dimensions in the outline can be controlled independently, or by interacting with other parameters inside or outside the outline.

Final Deliverable of the Project

Software System

Core Industry

Energy

Other Industries

Food

Core Technology

Clean Tech

Other Technologies

Others

Sustainable Development Goals

Climate Action

Required Resources

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