Design of a water turbine for household use

The shift towards renewable energy sources is more and more prevalent, especially in Lebanon where the energy bill has increased by about a factor of 10 in the past year. The presence of many water streams in Lebanon could potentially allow many households in their vicinity to benefit from clean and free energy, with little to no impact on the environment.

The purpose of this project is to design a water turbine for household use. This project will however only focus on the blade shape and spacing for optimal efficiency. The turbine should fit in a cube of size 50cm and should be able to provide power in the range of 0.2 to 2 KVA for a flow rate not to exceed . Ansys Fluent will be used to design and optimize the turbine. This would include the shape and spacing between blades. The turbine would be designed to operate with several water jets that are driven by gravity. The number of jets to be used would vary to increase efficiency.

Project Details