Hydrokinetic Renewable Energy Application in Bangladesh

The burning of fossil fuels to generate electricity has been around for some time in society.The method of using fossil fuels has proven to be reliable, however has side effects that effect the environment negatively.An alternative to burning fossil fuels is using renewable energy such as solar and hydrokinetic turbines. This paper discusses applications of vortex-induced autorotation bladeless turbines and bladed turbines for hydrokinetic power generation from rivers in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is a South-Asian country which is a delta surrounded by water bodies. Has a coastline of 580 km. The country consists of the Ganges (Padma), Brahmaputra (Jamuna), and Meghna Rivers and their tributaries which occupy 79 percent of the country. The Ganges (Padma) has an average velocity of 0.5185 m/s pre-monsoon, 1.185 m/s during monsoon and 0.4974 m/s Post-monsoon while the maximum velocity of the river is 2.7 m/s and the Padma river has a minimum velocity of 0.37 m/s. The Brahmaputra (Jamuna) river has an average velocity of 0.75 m/s and the river has a maximum velocity of 1.42 m/s and a minimum velocity of 0.65 m/s. The Jamuna river has an annual average velocity of 0.95 m/s and a maximum velocity of 1.55 m/s. The minimum velocity of the river is 0.67 m/s. It is important to develop ways to make power from the rivers making them cost effective and sustainable as more than 70% of the people in Bangladesh do not have access to electricity. We examined bladeless and bladed turbine models in a custom flow tank available in the FluidLab of Mechanical Engineering Program of SUNY New Paltz.The 5-to-6 cm turbine models were designed using SolidWorks and 3d-printed using PLA.The open flume tank was used to run simulation of rivers in Bangladesh by mimicking the flow speed and turbulence.Power production and rotation of the turbine are measured using digital multimeter and rotation sensor, respectively.