Testing Times

First things, I'm going to Sweden in May! Woo! My paper was accepted - I was a little bit concerned that they wouldn't agree with my changes and responses, but no further feedback.

At the beginning of March was the EWB Conference in the Royal Academy of Enginnering, London. The conference was split into 2 sections, education and research. I wasn't really initially interested in the education part, I didn't care that much about it. However, I had to attend one of the talks and so went to one called "I don't want to change light-bulbs; I want to change the world!", mainly because I liked the title. However, it was very good. It talked about problem based learning, using complex questions that have no correct answer. I thought it was a very interesting way to learn, very similar to how you work. I presented in the energy panel, which also featured work from Solar, biogas, biofuel briquettes and smokeless stoves. It was great to see a broad spectrum of energy research, but all trying for the same goal. The other panel I attended was the industry panel, mainly to listen to Jon Leary and listen to the presentation about the desert fridge. The papers for them can be found here and here. It was a great day, I managed to meet a lot of people to discuss some ideas, although didn't get as much feedback on my project as I'd hoped. I stayed in London for the Saturday after the conference, Hannah came up and we went to Tower Bridge Exhibition - a fantastic exploration about how Tower Bridge works - before heading to the West End to watch The Lion King - The Musical, which was absolutely amazing.

Tower Bridge Old Engine Room

Along with Katie Cresswell-Maynard from EWB, we gave a talk to the IMechE, Bristol and Bath branch. Katie talked about the need for engineers to help in global warming and poverty alleviation. Some of the statistics really made me think. Over 1.5 billion people (around 20% of the world's population) without proper sanitation. 900 million people without access to drinking water. Then over the next 20 years our requirement for water, food and electricity are going to be increasing with population growth. It's a big issue. I think the thing that got me the most that 1.5 million people a year are dying from preventable diseases. That to me is just wrong. After all those sobering statistics, I stood up and talked about my project, the technology I'm looking at and the benefits. I think the thing that brings it home to me is some of the interviews that we carried out in Nepal with PEEDA. There, people were so grateful that they had received electricity, it enabled them to work at night-time, not have to pay for kerosine and have clean and safe lighting as well as TVs and radios. (Video taken from PEEDA's website.)

I think I gave a good talk, and I met a lot people who wanted to chat about the project and has given me some more motivation about going forward.

I've been progressing with the testing. It's been quite slow initially, trying to understand how the rig can be operated. First I looked at how to capture all the water exiting the turbine, so the water didn't go over the floor. After some searching, I found a huge tank in the back of the Hydrolab, which could sit the turbine rig in. Any splashing water would then be captured by the tank, and pumped out by the submersible pump.

The rig in the large tank

The next task was to test the jet to ensure it was stable and a constant diameter. As can be seen in the photo below, the jet looked good across all heads.

The jet stability

With the jet stable, I did a check to see how much the head could be varied. From my specification, the head needed to be able to vary between 0.5m and 3.5m head. The head is adjusted by using two valves in the pipe run, one controlling the main head, then the second takes off any excess water, reducing the pressure. The flow is measured to calculate the head at the nozzle using velocity head. We could vary the head down to 1.0m, but below that, the flow rate became too low and the flow meter was unable to measure it. However, it was decided that this was not a real problem. We increased the head to maximum to see what it would be. However, as the static pressure increased behind the nozzle, this became too much for it and blew the nozzle off the pipe. Then followed a scene similar to those in slapstick films where I attempted to hold on to a flailing hose which was intent on covering the Hydrolab with water. After that I fixed the nozzle in with glue and put two grub screws in to fix it onto the pipe, which would increase the strength of the joint. I also resolved to only push it as far as 3.5m head!

Once this was done, the the testing began. Being a aero/mechanical engineer, I have never really used oscilloscopes before, so it took me a while, and a lot of help (thanks Niall and Gyorgy) to learn how to use it properly. However, once this was overcome, then I managed to get some readings for torque and speed out of the turbine. I was able to do a couple of runs at a constant head, varying the speed of the turbine as well, by varying the electrical load on it. From this I've got some initial curves which I need to now compare with my model.

The modelling has been more tricky than I had initially imagined. The flow inside the Turgo turbine is highly complex, with a jet impinging on the Turgo cups. There are several different forces at play, 3D flow effects and factors due to the shape of the cups and angle which the jet impacts it. All of which means that the next step from a simple 2D model is highly complex, and would normally include some sort of CFD. However, I have no intention of doing any CFD as this would not allow the model to be simply run for lots of different cases easily. Also, the CFD model would be severely complex as well. So, I've been reading up on how Pelton wheels are modelled to see if I can use any of the techniques there to match with the Turgo.

Outside of the PhD, I have been doing some more work with HTC. In the last week of February they did a evening of songs from the shows, films and TV. There was minimal stage management work to do on this occasion, so instead I found myself sat behind the sound desk. There, I had to balance the sound of the show between the backing tracks and the singers. I had never done anything like it before and found it very difficult to do, however, by the end of the run I found myself getting better. The show was a great success and we managed to have a full house most nights.

At the beginning of March I was very tired. I decided that I needed a short break, and so spent a week in Scotland visiting some friends and my cousin. I went to Aviemore, where a friend works in an outdoors shop. There I went for a bit of a wander around and climbed a hill behind the town. From Aviemore, I drove over the Cairngorms, by the slightly dubious ski centre at Lecht, and headed to the granite city of Aberdeen to stay with my cousin Linda, and her husband Dave. I had a brilliant time with them, just relaxing, reading, watching films and talking. I was amazed at the length of Aberdeen's beach, which stretched several miles up the coast. Hundreds of miles out to sea from Aberdeen are the oil and gas rigs, making Aberdeen Europe's self proclaimed 'energy capital'. Although you can't see the rigs themselves, you do know they are there. Very regularly, helicopters fly overhead ferrying workers to and from the rigs. In the bay by Aberdeen several supply ships are sat, waiting for their next delivery. It was quite fun just to sit and watch the world go by.

A view from the hill behind Aviemore

In Aberdeen, I also met a friend of mine from my undergraduate days, Keith. Keith was a engineer on the helicopters, doing the maintenance. As he did shift work, I was lucky enough to see him for a couple of days and we headed into the mountains again to have a look at the Victorian trail - around 60 miles from Aberdeen is Balmoral, the Queen's summer residence. As we headed deeper into the Cairngorms, the weather closed in around us, and then the snow came. It was fun to be driving in the snow again (or to be exact, driven in the snow), but I wasn't looking forward to making my way back to Aviemore again in it. So, when the time came to head back, I went the long way round, avoiding all possible snow related problems. Phew. One relieved Sam.

The snow falling as we head along the Victorian Trail up the river Dee

The next month sees me doing more testing and hopefully getting further along the road with my model. I need to start working on the next phase of the project as well soon, looking at the electrical side of things. Hopefully that can start more in earnest soon too!

SAM

p.s. This is a picture of Aviemore station, which has always been somewhere I've wanted to go. When we were little, we used to play a game called The Great Game of Britain, where you would get sent to Aviemore station and could normally only leave if you rolled a six...

Aviemore Station! My life is now complete...

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