COMPUTER AIDED ANALYSIS OF MACHINE FOUNDATIONS FOR MINI HYDRO PROJECTS

Abstract

The development of Mini hydropower around the world is on increase. In India also, the capacity addition based on small hydel projects is picking up satisfactorily. The utility of mini hydel power station for rural uplift needs no emphasis as such installation are invariably in rural and remote hilly area of the country. Through standardization to achieve large volume and turnover and careful planning to achieve short gestation period, small hydroelectric installation can prove to be competitive with other electric sources. Besides being highly reliable, these projects can have distinct advantage of being environmentally suitable, requiring no resettlement, avoiding deforestation and reduced transmission losses. Turbine-generator foundation is one of the most important element of the mini hydel projects. It transmits the dynamic forces, produced by generating set to the soil underneath to keep the amplitudes of vibration within safe limits, therefore dynamic analysis of machine foundation becomes essential. In this dissertation, a software has been developed for analysis of machine foundations for mini hydel projects. The program has been written in 'C' language. The software is interactive and user friendly.