Design improvement of a side water intake on a small hydropower plant

Abstract

This paper deals with the problem of flow distribution at the water intake of a small hydropower plant (SHPP). The plant, with the capacity of 1.25 MW, has been in operation since the end of 2013. At the side intake of the SHPP an uneven distribution of water flow in three parallel chambers of a settling basin has been observed. This anomaly has been noticed during the rinse of different chambers of the settling basin. Each chamber precipitated different amounts of sand. In this paper, water intake is simulated using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and a technical solution for equalizing flow in three chambers of the settling basin is recommended. The solution should be characterized by: minimal price, simplicity and the lowest possible pressure drop.