SIPHON FOR SHP PROJECTS

Abstract

Siphon as penstock/turbine intake and spillway are widely used in SHP projects in many countries like USA, Canada and China. In India, there are many low head SHP projects where siphon intake turbine have been used but there is no documentation reported on their performance.Use of siphon as penstock intake or as spillway at SHP projects are not reported in India. Under this dissertation use of siphon for penstock & turbine intake and spillway as a substitution to the conventional intake and spillway has been studied in details. Siphon penstock/turbine intake has been designed for fourteen SHP projects in India where the data of conventional design was available. Siphon spillway are also designed for seven SHP projects. The installed capacity of these SHP projects under study vary from 3 to 12MW. The Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) has been carried out for siphon penstock/turbine intake and siphon spillway taking a useful life of 30 years and same has been compared with the conventional design. Based on the design, cost estimate and life cycle cost analysis, it was found that seven out of fourteen siphon penstock/turbine intakes worked out to be cheaper in the range of 1% to 33%. Siphon spillways were worked out to be expensive as compared to convintional spillways. It was also found that there is no set criteria for the selction of siphon penstock/turbine intake and siphon spillways for SHP projects. The application of siphon as penstock/turbine intake and spillway is to be decided based on economic and other reasons