hydro turbines

Hello sargam

Which type of hydro turbine are you intending?

Reaction turbines:

• Francis
• Kaplan, Propeller, Bulb, Tube, Straflo
• Tyson
• Water wheel
• Archimedean screw turbine

Impulse turbines:

• Pelton
• Turgo
• Michell-Banki (also known as the Crossflow or Ossberger turbine)

If you are unsure, please refer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_turbine#Reaction_turbines

Reply here, with

Kind Regards....

Great Answer SparkStation,

Having been an Allis-Chalmers HydroTurbine field service rep in the early 1980's, completed the hydroturbine correspondence course assembled by A-C engineering staff, started a dozen units in US and Canada, did lots of troubleshooting. Then went to work for two hydro developers staffing and operating hydro and other plants.

There was a website with a turbine cutaway showing the flow thru the damsite and turbine, I just can't find it now. It was on CR4 months ago.

What I can offer is Sargam needs to look for hydrologic/river flow data to help in sizing the turbine(s) as multiple turbines may be more efficient, produce more power then a single one. There are also pump-turbines and other ways to maximize generation at certain times of the day with low flow.

What is the river flow? Usually there is a sine wave type annual flow graph.

There is also the original hydroelectric turbine.

the Tesle Turbine http://peswiki.com/energy/Directory:Tesla_Turbines

Brad

If I get you right, you need a software that lets you "see" the flow inside any given turbine shape. If this is correct then you need to use a CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) package, such as Fluent or ANSYS CFX. These sort of programs are not easy to work with, though. Anyway you can google "Fluent" and for sure you'll get enough info to give you a general view of the program's capabilities.

Hope this helps.

I'd suggest Flomerics, which works with Solidworks. It's expensive, at $30,000 per seat, but can be found at many universities. You might be able to use a copy at a nearby university.

Most CFD software is complex, but it is worth learning how to use it, as it helps tremendously in analyzing complex flows through something like a turbine.

The software is called FloEFD and it's not quite 30k. Also if Solidworks is your CAD tool, you'll want to contact them directly as COSMOSFloworks is the same exact product and FloEFD but sold only by SW.

We're trying to find the same software. We're looking at a different type apparatus (not really a turbine but we're calling it that because we don't know quite what to call it yet) that can be seen in the following YouTube Video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NTbAz9GyHw

Please let me know if you come up with anything.

If you watched the wind and water turbine video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NTbAz9GyHw you would have noted the unique characteristics of this turbine design.

We tested it and achieved a .38 kWt constant output based on a 300 lb load cell reading at 18 rpms. Two questions: How does that equat to kWt's per hour on your electric meter and would the same software noted above in this blog, still be the recomended software.

Obviously I'm not an engineer but I was smart enough to invent and build the two prototypes.

Some good news on my water turbine. I'm just now finallizing a JV with an Engineering firm. We've agreed to all the terms, the Corp. attorney is reviewing the last changes and we should hopefully be signing the darn thing early next week.

The engineers headed by a Ph'D in fluid dynamics are telling me this. By adding some addition technology, that they have not disclosed to me, they beleive after doing some intensive analysis, that our design will be able to out perform, on a cost efficiency basis, typical "gensets" and our fuel is free. Assuming that the locational costs will be free.

That is pretty exciting since as you know engineers are generally on the conservative side and to beleive that an renewable can out perform a fossil system is something special. They believe that they we will have all the necessary enginnering plans and specifications completed with 30 days.

Once again you can see my initial design prototypes at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NTbAz9GyHw I've had over the 2,000 hits after just 3 months.

Wish us luck and a happy holiday to all.

Good luck!

If things go well (or even if they do not) it would be interesting if you started a thread about getting an invention from conception to production (or alternatively, a thread of lessons learned and things to avoid).