Porjus U9A full-scale hydropower research facility

• Hydropower still faces complex scientific and technical challenges in order to secure the availability and reliability of the power plants despite more than a century of development. The main challenge is due to new market constrains such as electrical market deregulation and introduction of renewable sources of energy. The major problem is related to the dynamic of the rotor involving several fields: hydraulics, power engineering and mechanics. On the other side, the large and growing hydropower world market represents an opportunity for technically advanced companies offering better efficiency. The difficulty to scale rigorously any technical advance makes full-scale experiment a necessity. World unique facilities are available at Porjus, Sweden, for this purpose. The Porjus Hydropower Centre is composed of a Francis (U8) and a Kaplan (U9) turbine of 10 MW, each exclusively dedicated to education, research and development. In order to further investigate specific issues related to availability and reliability, a project was initiated in 2006. The main objective is to make U9 a full-scale hydropower laboratory able firstly to furnish the necessary data for the development of rotor-dynamic models but also turbines and bearings. To this purposes more than 200 sensors have been installed to measure displacements, forces, pressure, film thickness, strains... The work presents an overview of the newly upgrade facility as well as some of the problems faced during the instrumentation of the machine.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Strömningsmekanik och akustik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Fluid Mechanics and Acoustics (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Tribologi (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Tribology (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Teknisk mekanik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Applied Mechanics (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Strömningslära

Fluid Mechanics

Machine Elements

Maskinelement

Hållfasthetslära

Solid Mechanics

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)