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GROUP O MEMB483 CAPSTONE DESIGN

Table of Contents
1. Background ........................................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1
2. Requirements ........................................................................................................................................ 3
2.1 Engineering Requirements ............................................................................................................ 3
3. Existing Designs ................................................................................................................................... 4
3.1 Existing Design Research ............................................................................................................. 4
4. Designs Considered .............................................................................................................................. 8
5. Implementation ..................................................................................................................................... 9
6. References ........................................................................................................................................... 10
7. Appendices .......................................................................................................................................... 11



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GROUP O MEMB483 CAPSTONE DESIGN
1. Background
1.1 Introduction

In Malaysia, mini hydro power station plays an important role in supplying electricity for
rural community. Currently, there are approx. 41 mini/micro hydro power stations with a total
power output of 18MW. Most of the stations are located in remote area where access to the site
is difficult. One of the problem faced by operator of these stations are clogging of filters and
screens with naturally-produced floating and submerged objects such as dead leaves, small,
medium and large tree branches as well as agriculture waste. The severity of the problem is very
critical that manual cleaning of the filters and screens are required six times a day with trashes
accumulated of up to 30kg. As a current practice, local villagers are hired to do the cleaning job
and it is thought that a systematic method needs to be implemented to overcome this problem.
Problem of trash or any floating or submersible object accumulation in river or other
open channel configurations were not unusual in any part of the world today. With rapid
development on most developing countries in the world today, the problem has become severe
and results in pollution in the river. It is well-acknowledged that water from rivers, streams,
ducts was normally tapped for many useful purposes such as agriculture, water treatment plant
and useful work extraction. Prior to these application, the water must be filtered to make sure
that no objects were brought together by the streams as it could pose health and mechanical
hazards to human and mechanical machines respectively. Thus, method of separating or
removing the floating and submersible objects has been of great concern for engineers and
researches directly working in this field.
One of the methods normally applied to separate trash in streams of rivers were the
racking concept. This concept has been widely used in the work today. In Malaysia, the concept
was widely used by Jabatan Pengairan dan Saliran (JPS) in small river and canal streams. Based
on this mechanism, it was believed to be only suitable to small size stream as it would require
huge amount of power to operate larger capacity racking system for large stream. Another
method widely used in separating trash from river flow is the trash boom. The trash boom is
mostly suitable for floating object. For submerged and semi submerged object, the method was

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GROUP O MEMB483 CAPSTONE DESIGN
claimed to be not effective unless a net extension is made on the boom. All of these methods
have been applied to irrigation system in small river and canal where most of the rubbish was
found to be in the form of domestic and industrial wastes. For the application of mini hydro,
these methods were deemed unsuitable due to the nature of the trash as well as the location of the
reservoir which prevents the used of power driven mechanical machines.
This project is basically carried out to design and develop a self-cleaning system for
floating and submersible object diversion in river flow with consideration of environmental,
local culture and health and safety. The benefits gained from this project are a very efficient way
of dealing or filtering the dead leaves, small tree branches and agriculture waste. The manpower
required can be reduced and cleaning the filter would be easy with the new proposed design.
Most importantly, rubbish free water can be processed with ease for the water turbine to function
optimally. The dimension of the reservoir and the penstock intake has been given by our mentor.
These dimensions are merely approximation of the water intake area together with the reservoir.



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GROUP O MEMB483 CAPSTONE DESIGN
2. Requirements
2.1 Engineering Requirements
Engineering requirements on product.
Product can be able to prevent accumulation of trash at the water intake.
The accumulated trash can be removed quickly and efficiently.
Orientation of trash diverter is parallel to the river flow.
Product can prevent or minimize formation of turbulence at the water intake.
Product can remove different type of trash like logs, debris twig, dried leaves and so on
whether floating and Submersible Object.

Engineering requirements on remote areas.
Intake clogging should be reduced especially during high river flow and consequently
generated significant financial saving.
The increment of power generation to a maximum level that generate from the flowrate
of water in the river.
Avoiding the situation to be shut down frequently.
Ensure the smooth of the water flow in the river.
The area is not provided with electricity, thus design need to be powered by alternative
way.



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GROUP O MEMB483 CAPSTONE DESIGN
3. Existing Designs
3.1 Existing Design Research

In our problem, we are required to solve the clogging of filters and screen with naturally
produced floating and submerged objects. Existing design were the racking concept. However,
more improvisations are required to improve the efficiency of the system. Hence, the followings
are the description of alternative design approaches and methods, how the existing designs were
identified, and how we could foresee the opportunities to improve the existing solution further.

We are required to improve the situation and the description goes by the following, 28 kg
of debris are collected from the screens. Almost 90% of the debris consists of leaves, with
smaller portion consists of twigs and occasionally logs. On average, the workers had to clean up
the screens almost six times a day. The amounts of debris are expected to increase two-fold
during the monsoon seasons

One of the existing designs has the following specifications, the floating debris method.
Characteristics and behavior of floating debris at this station were studied giving 28 kg per day
as the total amount of floating debris accumulated. 1.64% per hour, as the clogging rate was also
established. A peculiar louvered steel diverter is designed, that when installed at a pre-
determined angle of 73degree, a self-cleaning effect can be realized. A physical model test of
this structure has also been performed with a good success in proving the concept, obtaining an
efficiency of 85% on diverting the floating debris. A meticulous cost-benefit analysis was
performed, giving a favorable result: 1.72 cost-benefit ratio and 2.8 years simple payback period.
Clogged intake screens by floating debris have been identified as one of major contributors to the
low availability at some of mini hydro stations in peninsula Malaysia



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Practical solution of the problem has to be to divert the debris, rather than collecting and
disposing it. Deliberations later have established some design criteria of such a diverter, the
optimum solution that meet the following criterion is shown in Figure 1.
Use no moving components at all,
be implemented at minimal (if none at all) modification to the existing intake structure,
and
make use of the water power. It is also intended that the new cleaning mechanism shall
have a self-cleaning feature. By adopting this concept, any object tends to flow pass the
diverter will be washed away by the incoming water continuously, thus preventing or
minimizing the objects flowing pass the diverter into the intake reservoir.











Figure 1: Rendition of debris diverter structure


Figure 2 shows the self-cleaning system, and conceptualize us of its mechanism. For self-
cleaning feature of the system, the concept of shear will be fully utilized. The debris diverter
structure now is envisaged to be materialized as a 40-m long 1-m high galvanized steel structure.
It shall be constructed in eight modules of 5 m long each to ease out site installation. Each
module shall have multiple galvanized steel fins / louvers of 1000 x 100 x 10 mm that will
function as the shearing surface as well as maintaining sufficient flow of water to the intake.


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GROUP O MEMB483 CAPSTONE DESIGN












Figure 2: Observation of diversion capability

All arms except arm no.2 responded closely according to river water level as it lowered
from 174m to 171.5m and rose back to 173.5m based on Figure 3. Arm 2 data was not included
since it is not ready for the test. The floating trash diverter system functionality and effectiveness
were further tested during recent Padas river flood where the volumetric flow rate was ranging
between 400 m
3
/s to 900 m
3
/s. The trash diverter system was reported able to divert the
increasing volume and variety of floating trash carried by the flood, and avoids or significantly
delayed total station shutdown. This indicates that the trash diverter system was functioning as
per design objective and the design enhancement was effective



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Figure 3: Trash Diverter Arm Response

A concrete wall with special geometry, and log boom are common structures being constructed
to act as a pre-filter to protect off-the-river type hydropower plant intake. Floating trash diverter
system is employed, which made from steel structure and high density polyethylene (HDPE)
floats to protect its intakes since the original installed log boom was damaged by flood, the
support structure is shown in figure 4 as the following.






Figure 4: The modeling of the existing design, the trash diverter.

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4. Designs Considered
Upon discussion and meeting with our supervisor, we come out with 2 designs in mind. These
designs are just basic idea; they might be improved or changed when further research is done on
the topic. Below are the descriptions of our designs, sketching of the devices are attached at
appendix.
1. A double layered filter.
The idea of this design is put two layer of filter at the intake area with one remaining at
stationary, while another can be moved by manual man power. When the first layer of filter is
clogged with waste, it can be moved to the surface of the water to enable for cleaning. This can
help the workers for doing the cleaning work easier instead of diving into the water to do the
manual cleaning.
2. A waste lifter
The idea of this design is similar to the first design, but instead of using a second layer filter,
there will be a moveable container to collect waste on the riverbed, on the surface of the filter.
When enough waste is accumulated, the container will be moved up the river surface, extra
attachments like iron brush will be installed the container surface facing the filter so that waste
stuck at the filter can be removed as the container going up to the surface. The accumulated
waste can then be cleared without having going underwater.



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5. Implementation

We had a brief discussion about our future planning, and have come out with a Gantt
chart as below. This Gantt chart is considered as a basic guideline about what we going to do and
how our design is going to progress. However the plan might change from time to time
depending on our actual working progress.
Planning For Capstone Project

Week 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Activity
Project briefing
Title proposed & project title
Group meeting - work divided individually
Perform project proposal
Sketching
Finalise materials, properties & dimensions
Design using suitable software
Plan Iterations with group
Selecting tools
Prototype
Quality of final design
Design Notebook
Oral presentation
Meeting with supervisor






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6. References

1. Muhammad Nazry Chik, Hasril Hasini. 2011. Enhancing Sustainability of a Mini Hydro
Station through a Self-Cleaning Debris Diverter. [Accessed 25 June 14].
2. Hazha Abdul Hamid1 , Mohd. Hariffin Boosroh2 , and Md. Mujibur Rahman3 , Hasril
Hasini4 . 2011. FLOATING TRASH DIVERTER SYSTEM FOR SIGNIFICANT
REDUCTION OF INTAKE CLOGGING AT TENOM PANGI HYDRO POWER STATION.
[Accessed 25 June 14]
3. Carleton, M.G and Nielsen, J.S, 1990. Study of Trash and Trash Interception devices, Water
Science and Technology, 22(10-11):287-290
4. H.C. Ong, T.M.I. Mahlia and Masjuki, A review on energy scenario and sustainable energy
in Malaysia, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Issue 15, 2011, pp. 639-647



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7. Appendices