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The turbinators!

Students of D Y Patil College created a rare tubular turbine that will be used to light up Chandoli village

Nitin Brahme

Posted On Monday, February 08, 2010 at 11:00:38 PM

Students of DY Patil College give Mirror a demo of the tubular micro turbine they created

What is a tubular turbine?

Turbines are hydraulic machines which convert hydraulic energy into mechanical energy (which is further converted into electrical energy). Tubular turbines are designed into the water delivery tube. A large bulb is centred in the water pipe which holds the generator, wicket gate and runner. Tubular turbines are a fully axial design. The micro tubular generator has a turbine installed at a low head level but can be modified in the existing system. Water is diverted through a pipe and then into the turbine. The system uses a synchronous generator with vertical shafts, and a horizontal shaft tubular micro turbine.

Powering the turbines

The students behind the project are: Pratik Khare, Akshay Khirsagar, Pramod Patke, Niyanta Gupta, Kedar Jumde, Rohan Bawdekar, Radhika Vaidya, Divyanka Dave, Satyam Quamara, Meghana Joshi, Sanket Lunawat, Chinmoyee Patro, Kapil Mohadikar, Koustubh Avchat and Sourabh Deshpande

Engineering students from D Y Patil College will soon light up houses in a village near Manchar! What inspired them to do this, was a small water purifier attached to taps that has a piece of slotted plastic turning round with the force of water.

The students created the tubular micro turbine as a project for the Entrepreneurship Week 2010 organised by the National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN). Now, they have decided to try and install their turbine at Chandoli village to light up half the houses in the village for at least eight hours.

The students told Mirror that this is a working model, which can be used as it is, or according to a required scale. Under the guidance of their professor, S D Limaye, the students have executed a working model of the micro turbines.

What’s special about their turbines is that unlike the huge ones located at Pawana and Khadakwasla dams that require water to hit them from a considerable height, theirs can operate at a head height of 1.2 metres. They claim their turbines can also be custom-made.

To implement their project, the students carried out a survey of Chandoli village that is situated seven kilometres from Manchar. Chandoli has a Kolhapur-style small dam. The students have planned to use only ten of the 33 doors that this dam has.

A turbine can generate 100 watts of energy per hour which costs Rs 720. The students say that ten of their turbines can produce enough electricity to power 2,000 CFL lamps.

Professor Limaye got the idea of creating the generator after looking at a household water purifier attached to taps. Students said that they made the turbine at the cost of Rs 20,000.

Speaking about their project, the students said, “Our search for opportunities to implement our project in Indian villages, and the sight of enormous water energy being wasted, led us to design a very rare turbine.

This tubular micro turbine which is very compact has never been used for a head (difference in height between the source and the water’s outflow) of 1.2m. This is our flagship project which is installed on campus.

The technical team of the E-cell of our college has designed and manufactured this product.”

Yoshima Somvanshi, senior associate consultant of NEN, said that E-Week India, is a unique week long campaign led by 512 member colleges with the participation of over 400 students. E-Cells (Entrepreneurship Cells) of the National Entrepreneurship Network are supported by the Wadhwani Foundation and over 30 organisations.

The theme of the E-Week was ‘India: Opportunities Within’ which aims to focus the attention of the youth on the daunting challenges India faces across many sectors that include water, healthcare, energy, education, waste management, transportation, etc and the enormous entrepreneurial opportunities available by providing solutions to these challenges.

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