Analytical Study of Archimedean Screw Turbine by Varying Numbers of Blades and Numbers of Helix Turns for Shahdara, Islamabad /

Abstract

Design of turbine for a site specially the run of river type is quite challenging. Archimedean Screw Turbine (AST) is generally preferred for lower head heights over other types of turbines to generate electricity. This work presents an analysis to find optimal AST design for the selected site. There is no appropriate theory for the optimal design of AST used in hydropower generation. Firstly, a feasibility study was carried out to evaluate water flow and available head height throughout the year. Then AST was designed in Solid Works and the model was imported to ANSYS for computational fluid dynamics analysis. Increase in blades and number of turns does not necessarily result in increased inefficiency. 47 different designs are investigated, and analysis is presented in the terms of torque, pressure, mechanical power and efficiency. In this paper, a new analytical model for the purposed site is designed and analyzed and all parameters are investigated to achieve the optimal design of AST. The most optimal combination among all sets of combinations is of five blades and three turns. This design has an efficiency of 97%. Similarly, the mechanical power of 13.91 kW and torque of 3.63 kNm are highest amongst all sets of combinations. The combination of three blades and three number of helix turns resulted in 93 % turbine efficiency.