Author(s)

Filipa Adzic¹, Thorsten Stoesser², Emily Morris³, Stefan Runge¹

¹Hydro-Environmental Research Centre, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK.
²Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, University College London, London, UK.
³Emrgy Inc., Atlanta, GA, USA.

The high-speed supercritical flow in steeply sloped channels contains a significant amount of hydro-kinetic energy. A novel, horizontal axis, spillway turbine as presented in this paper attempts to convert that energy into electricity. We report on the turbine’s design and experimental testing. Its intended use is in low-head, low-flow, manmade, concrete-lined channels such as chutes, spillways and other similar steeply sloped open-channels. The design lends itself from an impulse turbine runner but without a pipe or a nozzle. The spillway turbine consists of 2 main components: 1) the runner and 2) an accelerator channel that directs the water towards the runner’s blades. The runner, once fitted with Pelton-inspired “cup inserts” shows performance improvements both in terms of efficiency and specific speeds. The specific speed and the speed factors calculated confirm that this novel spillway turbine runner can be categorized as an impulse turbine. The maximum efficiency obtained during laboratory testing is 43.4% and hence competes well with standard hydrokinetic turbines.

Hydro-Turbine, Spillway-Turbine, Micro-Hydro, Horizontal-Axis, Impulse, Low-Head

Adzic, F. , Stoesser, T. , Morris, E. and Runge, S. (2020) Design and Performance of a Novel Spillway Turbine. Journal of Power and Energy Engineering, 8, 14-31. doi: 10.4236/jpee.2020.85002.