Cross-flow turbine development.

Micro hydro turbine poster 2017

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Mission accomplished. Good bye Royal Belum.

Sunrise in Royal Belum.

Unloading from the boat and loading to a truck.

Our houseboat.

Goodbye Royal Belum.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

This day was the ultimate day. The day electricity was supplied to Orang asli village. Two major issues need to be settled. One was to increase the water flow rate and two was to repair the connection between the HDPE pipes and the turbine house.

The increase in the water flow rate partly can be achieved by modifying the weir so that more water goes into the weir. For the connection to the turbine we decided to forego the PVC bends where we connected the HDPE pipes straight to the turbine house.

Day 5 atmosphere.

HDPE pipes were connected straight to the turbine.

Weir modification

Finally we got the flow rate we needed and the voltage we targeted.

220 voltage output

Day 6

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4 was the day we were supposed to do a trial run of our pipes and turbine. However there were several issues that need to be settled. First was the connection between PVC pipes and HDPE pipes which was our weakest link in the system. The connection really needs to be water tight and anchored to the ground. Second the weir was still not completed at this time. Third the turbine house still needed some final touch-up where we need to do some concriting and drain building. Fourth is the connection between the HDPE pipes and the turbine. So, we were split into several groups to settle all these issues.

Sands need to be transfeered from waterfall site which is about 100m from the turbine house

Final connection from HDPE pipes to turbine house

Finishing of the turbine house.

Our orang asli friends having a rest.

We also realised that some of the wires in the generator and controller unit had been bitten by a mouse. Luckily they were still can be repaired and used.

Connection between PVC and HDPE pipes.

Finishing of weir construction

Air valve were installed at several locations

Finally at the end of the day we decided to open the dam at the weir to run our turbine.

Water coming out from an air valve

The turbine in operation

We got around 2V of electricity which was considerably less than what was targeted.

Air was still in the pipes.

By this time we realised that the water flow rate need to be increased. Several reasons were suggested for the slow flow rate. We were thinking that there was still a lot of air in the pipes. So we need to let the water flows until no air is left – by checking the air valve. Also it was suggested to let the pipe be full first before opening the check valve so that we get a full body of water flowing through the pipes. And finally we need to modify the weir so that the percentage of water going into the weir can be increased.

However not long after the turbine was in operation disaster strucked. The connection between the HDPE pipes and the turbine which consist of a couple of PVC bends broke. So we were forced to postpone the project to the next day until this setback can be settled.

Day 5

Day 1

Day 2

On day 3 we continued the installation of PVC pipes and HDPE pipes.

Breakfast and also catching up with morning news from TV (we have astro NJOI at our houseboat).

Our houseboat (at the back) and our barge (at the front). The barge is used for transporting our pipes and equipments.

On the third day our houseboat moved to another site of the river since the waste tank is already full and need to be emptied 🙂

On the third day also we completed the final connection of the pipes.

Finally the PVC pipes and the HDPE pipes met.

Dr. Shamsul installing the reducer at the end of the PVC pipes.

We didn’t forget our solat.

Day 4

Day 1

Our group was split into five smaller groups. One was tasked to built the weir at the start of the piping system. Another group was tasked to install the pvc pipes and another group incharged of hdpe pipe welding. The fourth was the wiring group to transfer the electricity from the turbine house to the Orang Asli houses. The final but very important group was our group of chefs who stayed at the boat to cook and also deliver food to us.

PVC Group. The PVC pipes were installed on a hillside of a very steep slope. Some of us need to use harness to install the pipes.

Some of the trees need to be cut to make way for the pipes.

HDPE Group.

The machine used to weld the HDPE pipes.

Our hand-powered winch to pull the heavy HDPE pipes. In the picture is an Orang Asli helping us. They also liked to take pictures with their smartphone while listening to hindustan songs.

Astro journalists were also in our group. They stayed with us for the whole trip.

En. Kamal doing experiments on how to bend the PVC pipes since some of the route involved installing the pipes at an angle (we didn’t bring enough bends).

Food for morning break and lunch were delivered to us from our chefs at the houseboat.

Weir group. Rocks were gathered to make a dam.

Day 3

On day 1 we unloaded all the pipes, instruments and equipments onto the site.

Unfortunately it rained on that day so no other pictures could be taken.

Day 2