COMPUTER-AIDED DESIGN OF CIVIL STRUCTURES OF SMALL HYDRO POWER PROJECT

Abstract

Engineering systems were developed, design and used for centuries. Existence of many buildings, bridges, automobiles, aeroplanes, ships, highways, machine components etc. are excellent testimonials for the engineering design activity. In India, a large hydropower potential is available in the form . of small perennial rivers and streams. While some of the potential has been tapped, most of the power potential is yet to be tapped properly. To meet the country needs and in view of current power sector reforms large number of small hydropower projects are on the anvil. The projects are mostly designed on the basis of past experience and obsolete methods, which require lot of mathematical calculations. The entire design process is time-consuming and tedious. The recent advances in computer science and technology have resulted in the emergence of very powerful hardware and software tools that offer scope for use in the entire design process resulting in improvement in quality of design. Computer Aided Design (CAD) can be defined as the use of computer systems to assist in creation, modification, analysis and optimisation of an engineering design. The structural design of small hydropower project has been attempted with a case study in the present work. It also aims at introducing many of the advantages and facility offered by computers. To achieve this objective, detailed structural designs of civil works of small hydro project were first carried out manually and then the design was done by using a structural engineering design software STAAD-Pro. The design results were compared, it has been observed that the design obtained by the STADD-Pro-gives economical results besides saving in time to produce the design of system in addition to optimum performance.