News Wave Waves of News
Navneet Kumar Gupta
Newswave @ Roorkee
IIT-Roorkee has established a world Class Hydraulic Turbine Research and development Laboratory at its Alternate Hydro Energy Center (AHEC). It will support Indian small hydropower industry to grow & compete in International market in hydroelectric power development.
Sh. R.K. Singh, Minister of State for Power, GoI, inaugurated the sophisticated laboratory on 10th April, in the presence of Sh. Anand Kumar, Secretary MNRE, Prof A.K. Chaturvedi, Director, IIT Roorkee and other senior officials of hydropower industry.
This Hydro turbine R&D laboratory will act as a design and validation facility in addition to conducting research in hydro turbines and other hydro mechanical equipment conforming to international standards. The laboratory has been established at a total cost of Rs.27cr. including CFD software.
Shri R.K. Singh said, ‘The turbine model testing facility shall be a step for make in India, being the first independent facility for turbine manufacturers and power producers.’ He congratulated IIT Roorkee and particularly AHEC for coming forward for contributing to hydro industry as an excellent example of academia- industry bond.
The laboratory will support the Indian small hydropower industry to grow and compete in the International market in various aspects of hydroelectric power development. It will be an affordable facility for small hydro manufactures for design verification, validating designs of small hydro turbine and layouts using CFD technique.
Prof A.K. Chaturvedi, Director, IIT Roorkee said, “The laboratory will provide a platform for international academic and industrial collaboration with hydro power industry and research groups. The industry shall have research based solutions to industrial problems, prefabrication model testing, calibration and certification within the country in cost effective manner”
This new laboratory would also spearhead R&D in hydro-turbines, develop human resources for small hydropower plants in respect of entrepreneurs, engineers, plant operators and researchers besides generate data and building expertise for solving site specific problems.
Equipped with state of the art
It will conduct tests on scaled models of hydraulic turbines, for efficiency, output, cavitations performance, pressure pulsation and runaway speed, characteristic curves for the turbine quadrant, hydraulic thrust and torque. It is equipped with state-of-the-art SCADA based automatic control system with first principal based flow measurement, precision pressure transducers and sensors.
This is the first laboratory in the IIT receiving the accreditation by NABL. The AHEC is a Centre of Excellence for small hydropower in the country to validate homologous hydro turbine models designed and fabricated by various turbine manufacturers. IIT Roorkee is one of the oldest technical institutes in the country, established in 1847, and has played an important role in the development of Water resources in India, both through education of engineers as well as research.
