It works!

For the last month I have been working in our Hydrolab installing the turbine and the associated pipework. I'm not the best at installing things, but I'm quite pleased with the pipe run. I've fitted the system onto the downpipe from a tank 40ft (12.5m) above the lab. The plan of the pipe is in the drawing below:

Plan for pipe installation

I made a series of brackets with Unistrut and Dexion metal frames to support the pipe. I cut the pipe and assembled it dry to make sure that everything fitted before gluing everything together. The PVC pipe glue stinks. It is the most awful smell, even in the large space of the Hydrolab. After a day of gluing pipes together I had a really bad headache, but everything fitted as planned. There were a couple of problems where the glue dried before I could get the pipe to fit snuggly into the fittings, but I managed to adjust some of the brackets to allow for the slight changes in length.

The next step was to silicon up the joints to make them watertight, before checking the pipework for leaks by putting water through the system. There are several valves between my pipe run and the 40ft tank supply. One of them had been shut for a long time, and would not open. Myself and the lab technician, Jack, spent 2 days soaking the valve in WD40, heating it up and hitting it with a large hammer. Finally it cracked open and we were able to pressurise the pipework. There were just 4 small leaks in the pipe, which I was quite impressed with.

Pipework

After plugging the leaks and allowing the silicon to dry off we did another leak check, and the leaks were pretty much sealed - just a couple of small drops of water were coming out. So, now was the moment of truth. Connecting everything together to see if the turbine would work. The last year has really come down to this, the choice of turbine and design of the rig - what would happen if it didn't work. I hadn't really thought about that. I connected up the turbine to the flexible pipe from the end of the pipe run, switched on the oscilloscope to look at the output from the torque transducer and current sensor (used to measure the speed of rotation of the turbine) and then slowly cracked open the control valve.

With a rushing of water, the pipes slowly filled with water and the nozzle pressurised. Finally the nozzle exploded into life, directing water at the turbine, and the turbine began to spin. Across on the oscilloscope a trace was visible from the current and the torque. The excess water fell into the little water tank and then was pumped away by a little submersible pump. The only real problem was that the tank obviously wasn't up to the task that I required of it, water splashed out and all over the Hydrolab floor. But it worked! A video and a couple of photos of the first run can be seen below.

Turbine running with the water splashing

Oscilloscope trace (top torque, lower - current)

Video of first run

So now, the testing begins, and trying to match the model and test results…

EWB Conference

Last year I displayed a poster at the EWB research conference. This year, I was asked to present a paper on the Energy Panel about my work so far. This will be in the beginning of March at the Royal Academy of Engineering, London. So I spent a couple of days writing a paper to describe the work I've been doing. I'm looking forward to the conference, to get feedback on the work I've done so far and see what people think about the direction I've gone it, especially as it will be the first time I'm presented my work to people outside the university.

I received comments on the WREC paper I submitted before Christmas. Most of the comments were insignificant, and we got a great score on the paper. This was fantastic, and after a couple of small alterations to the paper, I resubmitted it again. I should hear back about the paper in the middle of February, whether it's been accepted or not.

It's going to be a fun couple of months, finally getting some testing to do!

SAM

Christmas Fun

Christmas time is never boring. Especially when it snows. I had quite a lot of travelling planned, off home to Cornwall, then to Leeds to see my sister before coming back to Cornwall with her for Christmas Day. We had arranged a Williamson family moot, so I flew to Northern Ireland on Boxing Day for that. Finally I would come back to Bristol on New Years Eve for a party. This was going to be fun. (And no, I wasn't going to calculate my carbon footprint as that was going to be huge.)

Waiting at the station for the train to Cornwall, the snow was falling as hard as snow could. All flights to Northern Ireland had been cancelled due to the heavy snow in the province. The train was frozen and when I finally managed to struggle on it was packed with everyone heading away for the christmas break. Maybe not the best day to travel.

The train in Bristol Temple Meads

I spent a couple of days at home, where we celebrated my Dad's 60th birthday. In our town we have a turkey auction every year. I had been there with my Mum a couple of times, watching her bid on a turkey and normally returning with several. This year, Mum was working so I was left to buy the turkey. I was determined to return with only one instead of Mum's normal rafter. I have never been in an auction before. It was tense, watching all the people getting over-excited bidding on turkeys. It was fun to see who was there because they hadn't bought a turkey yet and were desperate to get one, no matter what the price, and those who were just there to get a good deal. I fell into the second category as we had another turkey already if we didn't manage to get one. When the price was about right I bid. A couple of times I didn't get it, the price went too high, but after about an hour of being very careful I ended up with 2 10lb turkeys for around £30. When I got home my Dad just laughed. My aim of the single turkey just didn't happen...

Preparing the turkey from the auction for Christmas Dinner

After a couple of days at home I left again, heading up to Leeds to meet my sister. The train to Leeds was even more crowded than that back from Bristol. There was pandemonium throughout the 7 hour journey, and at most points during the trip up I had an elbow or backside in my face. Always nice. The drive back from Leeds with Mary was interesting, the snow started falling very hard as we past Birmingham and I wondered how far we'd make it down. But with Mary's careful driving and a lot of luck we made it back for dinner.

Christmas at home is always fun. My parents, children at heart still, give my sisters and I some of the same presents as we used to get when we were little. We always spend some time on Christmas morning sitting on their bed and finding out what Father Christmas has brought for us in our stockings. This year was no disappointment, I found a lot of chocolate (yum), some trivia cards, the standard facecloth, toothbrush and toothpaste and the ubiquitous small orange in the toe of the stocking. I absolutely love Christmas dinner, and didn't have any breakfast so that I would be able to eat lots of it. After church, I helped cook the dinner of turkey, gammon and all the trimmings before devouring it with the ferocity such a feast deserved.

After peeling myself out of the dining room chair we watched the Queen's speech before opening our presents - a Williamson family tradition. This was always annoying when I was small, having to wait until mid-afternoon to open any presents, but now I find it more fun as  it spreads the day out nicely.

I left for Northern Ireland on Boxing Day, and after a couple of attempts to land in Belfast, we eventually made it down. Northern Ireland was suffering from its worst winter in many years. In many places people had been snowed in for over a week. The temperature on Christmas Day had dropped to a jaw droopingly cold -19. However, as I arrived, the snow started to melt. For our Williamson family moot we decided that we would make gingerbread men. For a bit of fun we decorated them as each of us. 

Williamson gingerbread men

(For those that are wondering, the HT is a Hill toe and WN is Williamson nose, two genetic traits in our family and I have both of them!) We met up, played games, ate far too much again and then in all too short a time I had to leave again. I returned to Bristol and saw in the New Year there with friends and fireworks which was great fun.

Over the Christmas break, WREC had given me 3 papers to review as well. When i had a look over them I was impressed by the work that these researchers had done, it was all very novel and of great use. I felt that my own paper may not stand up to the similar levels of research, but I hoped that it would still be accepted. I had never reviewed papers before, so it took me a long time to give useful and constructive comments about the papers to help improve them. Whether I did or not, I don't know, but it was an interesting exercise.

So, Happy New Year to one and all! I'm looking forward to a most exciting year!

SAM

Time Flies...

I can't believe it's already the end of the year. Well, the last few weeks have been rather stressful. I've been rushing to get the paper for WREC up together. It seemed only yesterday I had got the abstract accepted, and then I was rushing to get the paper in. With help from my supervisors and friends in the lab I managed to get what I think was a fairly good paper into the conference. We'll now see what the reviewers think. After submitting, I was asked to review some other submissions, which seems a bit strange to me, but I'll give it a go!

The turbine rig has been taking up a lot of my time. From the CAD drawings to the final build has been quite quick, just a matter of months. Using the workshop's new laser cutter I've managed to make a lot of the components from thick acrylic, which has helped to reduce the build time. I found the main problem with the laser was that it didn't produce square edges, making the assembly of the casing rather difficult.

Finished turbine rig

We've run the rig with air, attaching the air line to the inlet of the turbine. With a little assistance initially the turbine turns and a can measure a torque, which is fantastic. The problems we've had with the air in starting the turbine shouldn't occur with the water, as it is almost 1000 times more dense so for the inlet flow, it would produce around 1000 times the force. The testing is going to be fun!

I've received most of the components now to fit out the hydrolab in the university to test the turbine in, the pipe work and fittings I'll need to install with the help of the lab technician Jack. There has been a lot of discussion about the best way to achieve the varying pressure at the turbine inlet, there is only one example of a turbine test rig in literature and so I was allowed quite a free reign on ideas. They varied from one that resembles a pico hydro system installation to using the header tank in the lab and bleeding off any excess pressure. Eventually, in the solution we have chosen the water will come down from a header tank in the roof, and the pressure will be controlled through ball valves to ensure the correct pressure at the turbine. We also have wide range of heads to deal with from 0.5m to 3.5m at the turbine, which may cause a few issues. So, the first part of the testing is to see how well we can vary the pressure at the turbine inlet before starting to spin the turbine.

As well as the rushing around, I've managed a bit of time to travel around, the work for Bad Girls kept me in Bristol most weekends for the last few months. At the end of November I went to Paris, which was great fun. We took a bus ride across which was good value, but the other passengers were slightly irritating. I've spent a lot of time on buses in Nepal in the most uncomfortable of positions, but I have to say the 7 hours to Paris had to be one of the worst rides I'd had. The Eurotunnel and company did make up for any lacking in fun on the journey though. Paris always is fun, so much to see and do, it's like walking around a film sometimes so many sites that you've seen on TV. We went up the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe and walked for many many miles around the streets. The hotel was in Montmatre, an interesting place most famous for Moulin Rouge, and we certainly found some 'different' shops around. Along the Champs Elysees there was a German Christmas Market, which was strange for the middle of Paris.

The Eiffel Tower lit up at night

The 'interesting' shops around our hotel

Eating a hot dog from the German market

I also went on a bit of an explore around Bristol. All the time I've lived here, it's always been on or near the Gloucester Road to the north of the city. Up and down the Gloucester Road, several buses ply their trade, and I catch them relatively regularly to the city centre, but never beyond. So for an adventure we decided to go for a ride to the end of one of the bus lines, which apparently would take us to Hengrove Depot. I had heard rumours about the south of Bristol - there were only dirt tracks there, people talked a different language, no running water and electricity was only used as an attraction. All of these rumours proved to be false, they had roads, running water and electricity, although their accent was even more bristolian, if that was possible. So, for anyone else thinking of catching a bus to the end of the line, do it, it could be a fun day out (we found a cinema and Harry Potter!)

Have a great Christmas and New Year!

SAM

Firsts

This last month has been a month of firsts.

At the end of October, I got my first abstract accepted for a conference. I wrote an abstract on the turbine selection method I've used to select my turbine, and submitted it to the World Renewable Energy Congress (WREC) Conference in May 2011 which will take place in Sweden. All this means that I actually have to write the paper I had envisaged when I wrote the abstract (argh, might be quite difficult!) and I will require a trip to Sweden in May next year to present it (yeay!).

I've spent most of the time since finishing my first year report designing my turbine test rig. I've ordered the first few components and these have been slowly starting to arrive. I'm particularly excited about the torque transducer, a little shaft inside a box that will measure the torque coming from my turbine. It uses strain gauges bonded to the shaft, and a wireless transmission of the torque valve back to the output. Can't believe how much of a geek I'm turning into...

HBM Torque Transducer

As some of the components designs have been fixed, I've also cut my first pieces out. The workshop in the university has acquired a 2D laser cutter, able to cut some plastics and wood. The designs from CAD can be directly loaded onto it, meaning a short lead time between designing and actually holding the finished component. This has been quite exciting for me again, I've been able to draw something on my computer, then a few minutes later I can hold it in my hand. I've now built my first assembly in the rig.

First assembly for the rig

The other side to the turbine rig is the way to control the head, and allow it to vary between the required values. As the turbine testing will be carried out in the university's Hydro Lab, it must be able to fit in there. We've been looking at the many different options to use and control the flow available from the header tanks in the lab. It's not something I had immediately thought of, how will I control the head? I mean, the aim of the test is to test the turbine, so that's what I've been focussing on, but there are many other parts behind the main headline test that need to be thought of and designed to ensure the testing is relevant, accurate and repeatable. This is my first foray into experimental research, and I'm learning a lot.

All in all, the PhD seems to be progressing OK. There are a few frustrations I'm hitting up against. As in all universities, the workshop are overworked, so any custom pieces I need them to make may have a long lead time. I also have to give myself a bit of a kick up the backside. I've got a lot of different parts to this project, the turbine experiment, turbine modelling, grid control development, literature, papers etc. and I need to keep on top of all of them. At the moment, I feel as if I'm letting some of them fall by the wayside to allow for the things that excite me the most currently - most particularly the turbine rig. I need to also keep myself in check, make sure that I don't make rushed decisions on things.

During the last week of October I was Deputy Stage Manager (DSM) for my first show, Bad Girls - The Musical. A DSM controls the show, giving the go for the start, all the lighting, sound and other cues. The first few runs through the show were very stressful, trying to make sure that everything happened. But as the week went on, all the technical team got used to the play and we really clicked. They were all fantastic, especially as for most of them it was the first time they had had a technical role. The play was reviewed by the Bristol Evening Post, the review can be found here. Overall, I think the play went amazingly well, I'm looking forward to the next one now.

And the next show isn't too far away. The final first is that I'm producing a talent show at church, with lots of help obviously (thanks in anticipation Howard, Vera, Cherry, and all the performers!). So Saturday night will be an evening of interesting talents, very much looking forward to it!

SAM

One Year On

One year in, 2 and a half left. How time flies...

(There are some more random photos again to brighten life up a little!)

Star cakes made for a bake sale at church

In the last month since coming back from Greece I've been mainly writing up. I had already written up all of the turbine selection work, so this report was mainly a summary of that, and the literature I've found on my concept design, as well as some initial results from simulations of the systems. Although writing up is never fun, it has been a very useful process. It has helped me to get a deeper understanding into different control techniques and methods. It has shown me where the holes are in my current research and plan the future tasks. My supervisors, Bernard and Julian, have also re-introduced me into academic report writing, which was something very different to working in industry. After many late nights, early mornings and fiddling with Word to get everything in, I finally managed to hand in my report on the 4th October, only one working day late. I will be the first to admit it's neither perfect nor complete. However, I'm quite pleased with it. Now comes viva time...

Cress head man (he didn't grow any cress sadly)

Along side the work on my report, I've been looking at developing a rig to put a turbine in. This will then be put in the hydrolab in the basement of the Engineering building here, and will form the basis of my mechanical experiments. Designing this not only requires thought about how it will work, but also what I want to test, measure and what I want to show with these tests. So to do this I've been re-introducing myself to 3D Computer Aided Design (CAD). I remember the hours and days spent whilst I was an undergrad sat in front of a computer designing things. It's amazing how annoying, frustrating and fun it is all at the same time. I've also spent an afternoon learning how to mill, as the workshop here have 2 mills and 2 lathes students can use. When I start designing and building, I've got to try and manufacture as much as possible myself as it will take a long time if I put a job into the workshop.

Trees are the poems the earth writes upon the sky (Bristol Zoo)

Bad Girls is going really well still. The cast are absolutely amazing, the set is coming together. It's performing at the end of the month, so I'm going to be fairly stressed and tired then I think. Fingers crossed that everything goes well!

I've also been tasked to organise a DIY Talent show at church, where the audience perform. I've not really organised anything since the failed Variety Show in my final year at Shrivenham. I'm slowly getting performers volunteering, and have enough to fill half a show now. I'm hoping that more turn up, otherwise it's going to be a lot of Sam, which no-one really wants...

A railway warning

I also fulfilled a boyhood fantasy at the beginning of October. Since I can remember I played with Lego, I contribute it to one of the main reasons to becoming an engineer. So, with some friends we took a day trip to Legoland Windsor. It was fantastic, the rides were possibly a bit childish, but to be honest, I'm rather childish too, so they fitted me down to the ground. I especially liked the miniature Prince Albert Bridge in their miniland.

Winning the cup!

So, I've got an interesting few weeks ahead. I'm going to be building soon, getting my hands dirty, and moving forward with the electrical side. Bad Girls will be amazing, if anyone can do come and see it (there is some adult content), you can buy tickets here, and I'm taking the youth fellowship from church out in Bristol tomorrow. This could be dangerous...

For now

SAM

Greek Island Hopping

I've been in Greece for the last 2 weeks, for Luzmila's Wedding. I flew into Crete and then caught the boat to Folegandros and Milos, spending a few days camping and exploring in each, before meeting up with everyone for the wedding in Santorini. The wedding and parties were amazing, Luzmila looked amazing. I then went back to Crete for a couple of days before heading home. It was great to have a relaxing holiday, I read a lot of books, visited beautiful beaches and saw more white Greek Orthodox Churches than you can shake a stick at.

Below are a selection of photos that I took whilst out and about. The full album is available here.

SAM

Busy Busy

There hasn't been many photo opportunities over the last few months, so I've put up some random photos I've taken on my phone just to brighten up the writing!

Scrabble problems

I don't quite know where the time has gone since coming back from Nepal. I've been finishing my turbine selection section of my work, and now have an idea of where I'm going mechanically. I've even submitted a paper to the World Renewable Energy Conference 2011 in Sweden about my selection method and outcomes, as it's not the usual way to select a turbine. Now, I'm modelling the turbine in a bit more detail and looking to see how I can experiment with it. Which comes to one of the frustrations I've reached. I thought I'd be doing a lot more practical experiments, but I suppose you have to do the theory first and come up with some ideas before you can test them. It's not the sitting in labs and fiddling with switches and buttons that I thought it would be. Not yet anyway.

Swappable heads on top of my computer

In PhD-land I've also been reading into the electrical side of things - how grids are made, how generators are connected together, control systems for these and so on. It's meant reaching into the deepest depths of my memory and trying to retrieve my old electrotechnology lectures. This has actually been very interesting, realising why things are done as they are in this world: the choice of 50Hz as a standard frequency in Europe, reading the history of the electrical current wars between direct (constant) advocated by Thomas Edison and alternating with Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse beating its drum. (To read about the current wars see here). I've also spent some time looking at the National Grid here in the UK, as this can provide ideas on how to operate a remote electrical grid. There's an interesting bit on the BBC about how the National Grid copes (or doesn't as the case may be) with the peak in demand at the end of Eastenders here.

Lights in Bristol city centre

The Welsh translation of microwave - such an onomatopoeic description! From the Centre for Alternative Technology

I've been doing a lot outside uni as well. I've been asked to be Deputy Stage Manager in Horfield Theatre Company's latest production, Bad Girls - the musical. I think it's going to be fun!

I went to the Ashden Awards in London on the 1st July. These are awards for sustainable energy solutions. This year there were some interesting and a wide variety of finalists. I thought it was great to see Okehampton College and St Columb Minor School, as they were spreading the knowledge amongst children, which worked its way back to their homes. The Isle of Eigg in Scotland had formed a remote grid using hydro, wind, solar and diesel which was great.

I spent a long time talking to the MD of Eigg Electric about the operation of their grid. It is a fantastic example of how renewable energy sources can be used to link up and supply communities. Although it would be great to implement similar schemes across the UK, Eigg has several advantages. They are a solid community, with everyone working to the same goal - partly due to their island location. On the mainland this sense of community doesn't really exist as much. They also accept limitations on their power - a maximum of 5kW per household. I think that most consumers wouldn't like the power being cut whilst using their electric shower if someone switched on the kettle. And also the cost of it was very high. Pico and Micro hydro is normally quoted at about $1000 per kW generation (£700/kW). On Eigg, however, the cost was £5440 per kW - and that is including the two 80kW standby diesel generators. I just don't think it's commercially viable still. Soon, hopefully, the price of the technology will reduce and maybe this shining example will be replicated all over the country and the world.

Having a lie down on Bridge Valley Road in the Midnight Walk

Last year Lynne Richards, a most wonderful woman who I had the pleasure of knowing, sadly passed away. St Peter's Hospice in Bristol supported Lynne and her family. St Peter's was organising a Midnight Walk, where women would walk 10 miles around Bristol. It seemed very appropriate to us all, as it would be on the same day that Lynne died last year, so a team of ladies from church was going to attempt it. Not to be out done, a group of men, including me, decided we would support them all by marshalling on the route. I was posted on the closed Bridge Valley Road, and enjoyed watching all the women puffing and panting coming up the road. When we returned to the finish, I regretted my previous smugness as I was tasked in cutting the tags from everyone's sweaty ankle. Karma.

Lynne's Ladies, Me and Jim on Bridge Valley Road

It's strange how things happen, this morning I woke up with an idea. I think it may be the basis of the idea, the idea that is going to push my research into the unknown, which is where I should be heading. It's been exciting trying to write it down to understand how I'm going to accomplish it. It's going to take a long time to develop it properly, but I finally have an idea. Woo.

I'm off to Greece for a couple of weeks now, one of my close friends is getting married. I'm looking forward to the break, sunshine, and a chance to sleep.

For now

SAM