AUTOMATED TEST SYSTEM FOR EFFICIENCY. OF TURBINE AND GENERATOR

Abstract

In this dissertation work an automated test system has been developed for testing efficiencies of hydraulic turbine and generator set and their prototypes. Efficiencies of turbine and generator are calculated by measuring input and output power for both entities. Input power, which is hydraulic power for the hydraulic turbine is calculated by measuring discharge and head of hydraulic input while output power which is mechanical is calculated by measuring torque and the speed of the turbine.. For generator output power is measured using digital power line supervisor. Efficiency of the turbine as well that of the generator is determined on the PC by dividing output power by the input power. For this calculation all the signals are acquired by the PC using data acquisition card. Various readings are taken at different discharge and different load conditions. Different load conditions have been generated by varying load from PC using programmable logic controller and three phase contactors. Discharge is varied using pneumatic control valve while electric load is varied using three phase switches all are controlled through PC. All electronic instruments have been used to measure various parameters. Strain gauge based Torque sensor in combination with power supply and signal conditioning unit is used to measure torque transmitted to generator by turbine. Digital correlation transit time ultrasonic flow meter in combination with ultrasonic flow sensors been used to measure discharge in the channel. Smart pressure transmitter is used to measure head of the discharge. Outputs of all these sensors are taken to the PC through data acquisition card to the PC all manipulation and display of data has been done by coding in Labview 6.1. All data has been stored in excel file format and efficiency curves for turbine and . generator efficiency have been generated by reading data from these excel files.