Dual hydroturbine unit

Details Dual hydroturbine unit Dual hydroturbine unit

1999-04-07

2001-01-02

Look, Edward K. (Department: 3745)

Rotary kinetic fluid motors or pumps

Float supported or buoyant runner

C415S060000, C415S221000, C415S906000, C415S908000, C416S086000, C416S189000, C416SDIG004

Utility Patent

active

06168373

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND
For generations, man has sought ways to harness natural kinetic resources to meet ever increasing electrical power generation needs. Notably, the implementation of large scale hydroelectric facilities has been amply demonstrated to be a successful method of electrical power generation.
The success of large scale hydroelectric generation notwithstanding, such massive facilities have numerous drawbacks. Specifically, these projects require construction on a colossal scale, which construction inevitably modifies or damages surrounding environs and delicately balanced ecosystems. Such projects are also extremely expensive and, while economically feasible over the long term in industrialized nations, this type of project is simply too expensive for regions with limited financial resources.
To avoid these environmental and economic conflicts, the last twenty years have seen continuous yet frustrated development of more economical and less environmentally intrusive systems for hydroelectric power generation. In particular, vast scientific and financial resources have been expended in pursuit of hydrokinetic turbines which can convert kinetic energy within a normal flow of a body of water into a useful amount of electrical energy. Such power generation systems are obviously less environmentally intrusive than their conventional counterparts because they require little or no construction. Additionally, such systems are considerably less expensive than their large-scale counterparts, both in terms of purchase of equipment and deployment. However, for a wide variety of reasons, hydrokinetic turbines deployed in the normal flow of a body of water have heretofor not been successfully developed to the point where they could deliver adequate amounts of electric power at a reasonable “per kilowatt hour” cost, with an acceptable level of reliability.
During the period between 1977 and 1991, the United States Department of Energy (“DOE”), undertook a large scale hydropower program in which a multitude of entities with new ideas for advancing the technology of hydroelectric power generation were funded for development and testing of their concepts. A thorough summary of this program is contained in the “DOE Hydropower Program Engineering Research and Development 1977-1991 Summary Report”, available through the DOE under document no. DOE/ID-13076, the contents of which report are specifically incorporated herein by reference. Despite the thirty four different projects undertaken during this fifteen year period at a cost of more than 5 million dollars, the project failed to yield any “small hydropower” systems which were commercially viable.
Of these thirty four projects undertaken in the DOE study, one is of particular interest—the initial development of a “free stream turbine” by Dr. Peter Lissaman. Dr. Lissaman's work was prophetic in that it provided a hint as to the energy generation potential of hydrokinetic turbines placed in a naturally occurring flow of water. Unfortunately, the project ultimately failed to yield a commercially viable and technologically sound hydrokinetic turbine system because of intolerable “technical risks”. More specifically, these “technical risks” comprised three primary issues: deployment issues, cost efficiency issues and capacity issues.
History indicates that successful deployment of a hydrokinetic turbine is inherently problematic. First, rotation of a turbine about an axis in one direction generates an equal yet opposing counter-torque in the opposite direction. To counteract this counter-torque and maintain stability of the hydroturbine, a mounting apparatus such as a series of anchored support posts or columns are attached to the hydroturbine and then anchored to a stationary structure, such as the floor of a river, a bridge or some other immovable object. While this solution of the counter-torque problem stabilizes the hydroturbine, it prevents ease of adjustment of the location of the turbine to a different point within the moving body of water where the water current flow is optimum. As the characteristics of the flowing body of water change due to an increased volume of water, freezing, etc., the point of optimum flow also changes. The lack of mobility of a deployed hydroturbine limits the adaptability of the turbine to such differing conditions and creates a corresponding decrease in the efficiency of the machine.
The second of the “technical risks” relates generally to cost efficiency. Conventional turbines, and specifically hydroturbines, have historically been constructed of steel or lightweight metal such as marine aluminum for a variety of reasons. First, conventional wisdom dictates that a machine such as a hydroturbine fabricated of metal will be more durable in harsh surroundings than any alternative available material. Second, a fairly heavily weighted turbine housing, in conjunction with conventional anchoring mechanisms described above, provided the configuration best able to withstand and minimize the effects of counter-torque generated by rotation of the turbine blades and shaft.
While each of these suppositions regarding metal fabrication has merit, constructing a hydroturbine of even the lightest available metals still yielded a very heavy piece of equipment. Additionally, the cost of manufacturing a metal hydroturbine (in particular the metal shroud surrounding the machine) was very expensive. In fact, the Lissaman study concluded that although a smaller, shrouded hydroturbine could produce as much electrical output as a much larger unshrouded unit, the unshrouded unit of a much larger size was still less expensive to manufacture.
Additionally, the increased weight of the metal shrouded turbine created difficulty in deploying and retrieving the units. In many cases, heavy-duty transport helicopters or ships of substantial size and berth were required to deploy and retrieve metal hydroturbines. Because of the costs and other logistical issues associated with such support vehicles, use of such heavy hydrokinetic turbines in remote, undeveloped or disaster relief areas is not practical because of the inaccessibility of heavy duty deployment equipment. Ironically, it is those types of areas which have the greatest need for successful implementation of this technology.
Ultimately, the cost of manufacture of metal hydroturbines and the difficulties in deployment and retrieval of metal hydroturbines in view the relatively modest output of single metal hydroturbines has collectively prevented the successful implementation of such devices since the completion of Lissaman's project seventeen years ago.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a hydroturbine unit which overcomes the storied problems with hydrokinetic technology. More specifically, there exists a need for a hydroturbine unit which does not require substantial vehicular support for deployment or retrieval. There is an additional need for a hydroturbine unit which can be stabilized in a path of water flow without complex anchoring mechanisms. There is a further need for a hydroturbine unit which can be placed in a particular optimal position in a path of water flow, then easily maneuvered to a different position within the body of water in the event of a change of location of the optimal path of water flow. Finally, there is a need for a hydroturbine unit complying with the above-stated needs which is also economical to build and operate.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The following invention is a dual turbine unit which may be adjustably and easily deployed into and retrieved from a path of water flow. The preferred embodiment of the present invention comprises two hydroturbines in a “side-by-side” configuration, though it is specifically contemplated that three, four or more hydroturbines may be combined in an alternate embodiment which also falls within the spirit and scope of the invention. Referring back to the preferred embodiment in which two hydroturbines are implemented, each of the two hydroturbines has a turbine runner assembly including more than one turbine b

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