Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
II(S)-2015
Abstract- Hydro power is the renewable source of role in the development of a country. In these days,
energy and world is trying to use this energy at the electricity can be produced by number of ways like hydro
maximum rate, but the hydro power plant requires , coal, steam, wind and nuclear. The energy which is
certain head and flow of the water to work efficiently. produced by hydro is cheapest among all these [i]. Run of
This requirement results in high initial capital cost of river small scale hydro power units which require neither
the hydro power plant. Countries like Pakistan where dam nor water storage must be the prime consideration
a natural river draft is available have a great potential for electrification of rural and less developed areas [ii-iv].
for micro hydro power generation. Screw turbine is Large dams are used to generate power in megawatt. To
one of the turbines which works on low head and build these dams, large capital cost and large land
requires less flow rates that can be used for reforms are required. So, in these days micro hydro
power plants are common for simple run of river. For low
generating electricity at micro level. The screw
head the most suitable turbine is hydraulic Archimedes
turbine has low initial cost and running cost is also
screw turbine [v-viii].
low as no fine water screening is required, no need to
Archimedes Screw is one of the oldest hydraulic
build dams and it is also very friendly to marine life as
machines, but this was used for long time for pumping
fishes can easily pass through the turbine blades
water [ix-x]. Firstly, it was used for pumping water from
without any harm. In this study, the screw turbine is
lower level to upper level but it can be used in reverse as
designed to be installed on the run of the river a hydraulic screw turbine for energy conversion.
fashion. The purpose of current study is to investigate The generation of electricity through hydro-power
the torque developed on the turbine shaft at different plants has increased in last decade [xi]. Different run of
heads and flow rate. It is concluded that maximum river dams are created in different regions. The countries
speed (RPM) of the turbine shaft is achieved when it which are major hydropower producers are Canada,
is inclined at an angle of 36o. Any increase in the flow USA, Brazil, China, Russia, Norway, Japan, India,
rate for a given inclination and load will result in Sweden, and France [xii-xiii].
increased RPM of the screw shaft which makes it Pakistan is facing energy crisis due to lack of adequate
suitable for producing electricity at micro level to investment in mobilizing energy resources and due to
electrify the areas of Pakistan located along the increase in demand. Government of Pakistan is focused
natural water draft. to increase energy supplies for economic development of
Pakistan. Pakistan is highly dependent on oil and gas for
power production at the moment. To meet 30% of energy
Key Words- Screw Turbine, Mechanical Power, Low
requirements, crude oil and LPG are imported, spending
Head, Less Flow Rate, Speed, Torque, Run of the
14.5 billion. All the energy resources and their
River.
contribution in overall energy consumption are given in
Table 1.
I. INTRODUCTION
Pakistan has a great potential for micro hydropower
Small and large sources of hydropower have been
generation and the utilization of this potential is the need
the most demanding and important renewable source in
of the hour. Depending upon the availability of water
worlds power production scenario and contribute about head and flow rate, numerous turbines like Pelton wheel
19% of the earths electricity. Electricity plays a major turbine [xiv-xv], Francis turbine [xvi-xvii], Kaplan
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Technical Journal, University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Taxila, Pakistan Vol. 20(SI) No.II(S)-2015
turbine [xviii-xix] , etc. as shown in Figure 1, have been II. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
developed. Screw turbine is basically a low head turbine The design parameters are carefully selected and
and its working range is less than about 5m head [xx]. are shown in Table 2. The material used for fabrication of
The basic working principal of screw turbine is very this model screw turbine is mild steel. Mild steel sheet of
simple and it can be used in run of river fashion. Water 0.08 inch thickness was first bended into desired profile
moving downward through the blades of the screw under of the screw and then welded with 2 inch hollow shaft.
gravity turns the turbine shaft which can be coupled to a The outer diameter of the screw is 5.6 inch and maximum
generator to generate electricity at micro level. The use of length is 36 inch for this study. The variables in this study
hydraulic screw as a turbine which is the reverse of include inclination angle of the screw turbine, flow rate
Archimedes screw pump [xxi] needs attention to develop of water and applied torque to calculate the power
micro hydro power plants in the present scenario of produced by the screw turbine under loaded conditions.
energy crisis in Pakistan which is the basic motive of this The inclination angle is varied between 21 degree to 36
study. degree, water flow rate from 0.4 liter/second to 1.0
Table 1: The energy mix of Pakistan in 2012 liter/second and applied torque from 0 to 2.8 Nm using a
spring balance of range from 0 to 10N with 0.1N
Resources Contribution resolution. The experimental range of these input
parameters are also shown in Table 3Table 3 and a
Oil 30.8% schematic of this experimental setup is given in Error!
Gas 49.5% Reference source not found..
LPG 0.5%
Coal 6.6%
Hydro 10.5%
Nuclear 1.9%
Source: Pakistan Energy Year Book 2012
Figure 1: Scope of screw turbine amongst other turbines The ends of the model the screw turbine are
supported by UC-206 bearings. Experiments were
operating under different flow rate and head.
performed on the turbine by varying different parameters
to see the effect on RPM (revolutions per minute)
Hydro screw turbine has certain advantages over any
developed under no load and different loading conditions.
other hydro turbine. The main positive aspects of a screw
The RPM of the turbine were measured by varying the
turbine include low capital cost, less installation time, no
flow of water and keeping the inclination angle at a
need for fine screening, high efficiency as compare to
certain value in the experimental domain and then by
Kaplan turbine, high efficiency over variable flow rates
changing the inclination angle to another value. A ball
as the inclination angle can be adjusted to compensate
valve was used to maintain the flow to a certain value
variable flow of water and low maintenance cost. It is
within the range of this study. A tachometer (Digital
also fish friendly and safe for other marine life because
Tachometer, ST-623B) was used to measure the RPM of
leaves, fishes, etc can easily pass through the helix of the
the screw turbine shaft. Torque was varies by changing
screw. Keeping in mind all the above mentioned benefits,
the force applied through a pulley, a belt and spring
an experimental investigation is presented in this study to
balance. Then torque was calculated using formula T = F
analyze the performance of a screw turbine under
x r, Where T torque of the turbine (Nm), F is the
different operating conditions and the results suggest its
applied force (N) and r is the radius of the turbine shaft.
suitability and applicability in run of river fashion to
generate electricity.
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Technical Journal, University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Taxila, Pakistan Vol. 20(SI) No.II(S)-2015
168
Technical Journal, University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Taxila, Pakistan Vol. 20(SI) No.II(S)-2015
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Technical Journal, University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Taxila, Pakistan Vol. 20(SI) No.II(S)-2015
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