FranSed in the Himalayas

(A collaborative project among NTNU, Kathmandu University (Nepal) and Indian Institute of Technology (India))

Himalayan rivers, in Nepal and India, are perennial rivers that flow throughout the year because of monsoon rains and snowmelt from the mountains. That is why there is a huge potential of hydropower in these countries, but at the same time, they have their own challenges. One of them is the erosion of turbines because of heavy sediment loads in the rivers, especially during the monsoon.

The mineral composition of sediments in these rivers basically consists of quartz and feldspar, which are harder than steel. Operation of power plants during high sediment concentrations result in erosion of turbines which is termed as “Sediment erosion“. Sediment erosion is one of the major challenges in successful operation of power plants in Himalayan basin. Current hydropower technology is developed especially for water resources with no sediment. When same technology is used in sediment laden waters, it results into erosion of turbines/runners, their frequent repair and maintenance and ultimately, decrease in efficiency of power production.

Therefore, the need of hydropower technology especially designed to overcome this challenge is of utmost importance.

FranSed (Francis Turbine for Sediment Laden Waters) project especially addresses this need. The major objective of FranSed is to develop Francis turbines that can handle huge amount of sediments.  FranSed is a collaborative project among NTNU, Kathmandu University (KU), Nepal and Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee (IITR), India. The project was started in September 2018.

Nepal and India both have Himalayan Rivers  with high sediment loads. Thus, in this project,  at least one Hydropower project from each of these  countries have been identified as reference  sites i.e. Bhilangana Powerplant from India and  Jhimruk Powerplant from Nepal. At NTNU, one  PhD student from Nepal, Nirmal Acharya is  carrying out the design of Francis turbine that  can withstand high sediment loads.

Prof. Bhupendra Gandhi and one PhD student, Shubham Sharma from India will develop sediment erosion model at IIT Roorkee. Model testing will be carried out at Turbine testing lab at KU. Thereafter prototype testing of the turbine will be carried out at each reference sites in India and Nepal. Prof. Arun Kumar, Anant Rai (PhD) and Abbas Ali (PhD student) from IITR, Ass. Prof. Biraj Singh Thapa (PhD) from KU and Nirmal Acharya (PhD student) from NTNU will be carrying out the prototype testing.

The principal investigator of this project is Ole Gunnar Dahlhaug, Professor at NTNU. The project coordinator is Sailesh Chitrakar, PhD (2015- 2018) from NTNU and KU, who has conducted research related to sediment erosion in Francis turbines during his doctoral study. There will be an exchange of eight researchers among three partner institutions: KU, NTNU and IITR.

The outcome of this project will be highly efficient Francis turbines that can handle high amount of sediment loads. Knowledge and technology transfer among three countries is another important achievement that is expected from this collaboration.

- Shreejana Poudyal

Project Coordinator and administrator, FranSed (HydroCen)

Executive Officer, Department of Energy and Process Engineering( NTNU)