Week 14

Report Writing

After the presentation last week, I continue to writing my proposal report. This week I focus on writing the methodology and the preliminary result. In Methodology, there will be the flow chart, the block diagram, software and hardware used, the project sketch and gantt chart. From meeting with Dr. Reyasudin, I figured that I got error in my flowchart. Hence, I made a new flow chart and change with the older own. Figure below shows the flow chart, block diagram, and gantt chart.

Flow chart

Block Diagram

Gantt Chart

Week 13

Preparing for presentation FYP 1

In this week I was preparing the slides and understanding about my project. Based on the requirement, the slides need to be 8 to 15 slides. The content that need to be in the slides are Introduction, Objectives, Problem Statement, Scope And Limitation, Literature Review, Methodology, Preliminary Results and Conclusion. Before the presentation day, I gave my slides to Dr. Reyasudin for confirmation and asked for his approval. Here I attach the slides that has been prepared :

FYP 1 Presentation  Day

The presentation day was held on Wednesday of 8/5/2019. It started at 12.30 PM at Gemilang Hall.
That assessors that assessed me were Dr. Kanendra Naidu A/L Vijyakumar Electrical Technology Section and Sir Azmi Bin Hashim from Electrical Technology Section. My presentation went well and I bet my thanks to both my assessors for hearing my whole presentation.

Week 12

Component that will use

In this week, I focus on the others item that will be used in my project. Below shows the item that will be used in my project :

• Generator
• Arduino Uno R3
• Voltage Sensor
• Power Storage

Generator

The uses of generator is to convert kinetic energy to electrical energy hence generate electricity by the rotation of turbine in water pipe. For generator, I will use the generator of 12V/24V 30W permanent magnet with 6000rpm. This generator drive up smooth, with almost no noise. With the high value of rpm, it can generate large torque. The stator winding of the motor are made up by copper wire. Below shows the generator that will use :

12V/24V 30W generator (with 6000rpm)

Voltage Sensor
The primary function of the voltage sensor is to detect and measure the DC voltage from the generator. When the presence of voltage is detected, the sensors provide tan output in the form of analogue voltage signals, current level, frequency and modulated frequency outputs. Below shows the voltage sensor that will use :

Voltage Sensor

Arduino Uno 

For the controller, I use the Arduino Uno in my project. The function of Arduino Uno is to display the value of voltage that being detect to LCD that be connected to the LCD. The board contains all sets of input and ouput digital and analog pins that can be used to interface with all the hardware used in this project. This Arduino Uno needed specific set of coding in order to run it perfectly. It will connected to the voltage sensor. Then the Arduino Uno will interface with the written coding and display the voltage to LCD. Figure below shows the Arduino Uno that will use :

Arduino Uno

Power Storage

The power generated from the generator will be stored in this power storage. The power storage made by lead acid battery which is rechargeable and has high capacity of stored charge. Below shows the lead acid battery that will use.

Lead Acid Battery

All the item that listed here will be combined to complete the project. There may be got exchange of item that will use depends on the situation of the project.

Week 11

This week I tried to design the turbine that will use in my micro power generator. I tried to learn and use several software to design by using SketchUp. Below shown the SketchUp software.

The reason I using SketchUP because it is easier to learn it and design the turbine. Also I can use it to print out my design by using 3D printer. The reason I made the 3D printing for the turbine is to test on how it can work in the water pipe.

The Design of Spehrical Helical Turbine
 Below shown the design of turbine that been made by using SketchUp. There a lot of things need consider when designing the turbine which is the size of the turbine, the angle of  the blade's turbine and the shape of the turbine. We need to make sure that the size of the turbine is fit in the water pipe. Also the angle of blade's turbine need to pay off attention. If the angle was not properly make, then the turbine will not rotate by the pressure and the flow rate of water.

1st Design

  

2nd Design

Week 10

Material of Turbine Blade
I continue my progress of making turbine.

Building my full size turbine from composite material chosen for 3 reason :

• Mechanical (Strength)
• Corrosion Resistance
• Cost

From characteristic above, I got several choice of material to make the turbine which is :
martensitic stainless steel, 3D printing or fiber glass. All 3 of this got its own pros and cons. Below shown the characteristic of each material :

From table above, there were many things that need to be considered before i make the decision. From what we can see, the easiest one to make the turbine is by using 3D printing. But, I am not sure if that turbine can works as the way as it need to be without affect its performance. If we want to make by using fiber glass, it need a very high cost and need to have a specific way of doing it. As for Martensitic Stainless Steel, it also have an expensive cost from making it. But it still can be make because it has a low weld-ability to making it. I still not making choice for the material of turbine since I did not done yet my research on it. After I done my research, I will inform at another day.

Week 9

Workshop
For this week, we had FYP Workshop 2. The workshop was conducted at TTL2

The Workshop is about to give explanation for the student for the students who taking the final project for Degree programmes for the proposal report of FYP 1. The workshop is about :

• Methodology (Chapter 3)
• Preliminary Result (Chapter 4)
• Abstract Writing

Calculation of Micro Hyropower
I also learn about how to calculate the power generated by the micro hydro-power. This was very importance because it is to know if the turbine that been made can withstand the pressure and water flow rate in the water pipe. If the pressure and water flow rate are big, the turbine will breakdown and can't work properly. Below shown the formula of calculation of micro hydro-power : 

P  =  η * Q * g * h

Where :

P  :  Power, measured in Watts (W)

Overall η  :  The product of all of the component efficiencies, which are normally the turbine, drive system and generator

Q  :  Flow rate of water

g  :  The gravitational constant, which is 9.81m/s2

hnet  :  the net head. This is the gross head physically measured at the site, less any head losses. To keep things simple head losses can be assumed to be 10%

Expected Calculation

Below also shown the expected calculation that been made for the expected output of power generated. 

Expected calculation that used the calculation

Week 8

For this week, I started to make research about the turbine that I want to use. This was the most important part of my research for my project. Below was the things that needed to highlight for the turbine :

• Type of turbine used
• Material of turbine blade
• How the turbine function 
• Environment issue 

Type of Turbine Used 

Flowing water is directed on to the blade of turbine runner, creating a force on the blades. Since the turbine is spinning, force acts through a distance, the energy is transferred from water flow to turbine. 

There were 2 type of turbine which is Reaction Turbine and Impulse Turbine. Reaction turbine are acted on by the water, which changes pressure as it move through the turbine and give up its energy. They must be encased to contain the water pressure or they must be submerged in the water flow. Impulse turbine change the velocity of the water jet. The jet pushes on the turbine's curved blades which changes the direction of flow. The resulting change in momentum caused a force on the turbine blades.

For my project, I decided to use Reaction type of turbine which submerge in the water pipe. The type is Gorlov Helical Turbine. 

Gorlov Helical Turbin
Gorlov Helical Turbine (GHT) is a turbine that designed by altering it to have helical shape. Term of "foil" is used to describe the shape of the blade cross-section at the given point, with no distinction for the type of fluid. By using this shape, the turbine generates a smoother torque curve, so there is much less vibration and noise. The GHT has been observed to have up to 35% of efficiency in energy capture.Below show the original shape of GHT :

For my project, I will change the GHT and make it into spherical-helical's shape turbine. Since my project was in the water pipe, so the turbine should be in spherical shape. This will make the turbine rotate much faster due to the shape. The rotation of turbine will generate voltage by cutting the magnetic flux at rotor and stator. Below shown the spherical-helical turbine that I will use :

As for the material of turbine blade, I still doing research on which material is suitable for being used without messing up the performance of turbine.

Week 7

For this week, we had FYP Workshop

The workshop was conducted at TTL2

The Workshop is about to give some further explanation for the student for the students who taking the final project for Degree programmes for the proposal report of FYP 1. The workshop is about :

• Introduction (Chapter 1)
• Literature Review (Chapter 2)

Decision of Type & Size of pipe

For this week, I finalize the type of pipe used in my project. i will use PVC pipe because it easier to handle sturdy. Although it easier to break down, it will not a problem because the pipe are not put at easy-break place. As the size of pipe, I will use the nominal 4 which is O.D Inches are 4.5. This is because the pressure in water pipe will affect the turbine performance and water flow. If the size of pipe is big, the water flow will become slow and pressure will low. Below was the size of pipe :

Nominal & O.D

Week 6

For this week, I'm doing research about the pipe. When talking about pipe, there were a lot of thing that need to be considered such as the type of pipe. A lot kind of pipe that had been made such as PEX Pipe, PVC pipe, Rigid Copper Pipe, ABS Pipe, Flexible Copper Pipe, Galvanized Steel Pipe and Case Iron Pipe. A lot of pros and cons in this kind of pipe. As for my project, I'm using PVC pipe.

Type of Pipe

PVC stands for polyvinyl chloride. Of the different types of plastic pipe used for water supply, PVC has a wide variety of plumbing uses, from drainage pipe to water mains because it has lighter and easier to work with than traditional galvanized steel pipe. PVC pipe is moderately easy to install and requires little more than hacksaw and mitre box to cut. PVC glues together with solvent. Below listed the pros and cons of PVC pipe.

Pros

• Diameters clearly marked on the white surface of the pipe.
• Inexpensive and can be used for long runs such as for irrigation.
• Flexible

Cons

• Pipe cannot be unjoined and must be cut
• Glued pipes can be prone to be leaking
• Fragile and tends to shatter. 

We also can use galvanized type of steel/iron pipe but it got greater problem where the flow of water become slow or static for periods of time due to rust discoloration caused by internal corrosion. This type of pipe only used in older homes. This will nit used for water supply in new construction or remodel projects. 

Type of pipe

Pressure

We also need to take note about the flow of water in the water pipe. It's because of the present of friction on the wall of the pipe. In fluid flow, friction loss (or skin fraction) is the loss of pressure or "head" that occurs in pipe or duct flow due to the effect of the fluid's viscosity near the surface of the pipe or duct. When the friction is high, the flow of water become slow thus affect the rotation of turbine. For PVC pipe, the friction on the wall is lower than galvanized steel pipe. We can calculated the friction loss between the pipe surface and the fluid flow at the physical properties of the system. These condition can be encapsulated into dimensionless number Re, known as the Reynolds number

where V is the mean fluid velocity and D, the diameter of the (cylindrical) pipe. In this expression, the properties of the fluid itself are reduced to the kinematic viscosity , v

where u = viscosity of the fluid (SI kg/m/s)

Week 5

Registration of FYP's  tittle

This week was the last week to register the tittle of FYP. I went to see Dr. Reyasudin once again to remind and comfirmed my tittle to him. Dr. Reyasudin registered my name and tittle of the project under his supervision on the FYP website. I should be able to check the application status online once the supervisor approve my application.now, I am officially under supervision of Dr. Reyasudin for my FYP. As my supervisor, Dr. Reyasudin will guide me in this project, recommend method and techniques to achieve the project's objective.

Research and Finding

For this project, I had come out with a flow chart diagram for prototype that showed the process and step.

• Flowchart of  "Development of micro power generator in water pipe".

Week 4

Registration on FYP tittle

In this week, I went to see Dr. Reyasudin. After a lot of thinking and doing research, I choose to do my one on my tittle before which is "Development on Power Generator in Water Pipe".  At there, we discussed about my research that Dr. Reyasudin asked me to do. I explained all the things that I search about my tittle. In the end, we confirmed my FYP's tittle. Thus, my finalized title is "Development of Micro Power Generator in Water Pipe". Dr. Reyasudin will register my tittle in UniKL BMI's FYP website for further step. I would like to thanks Dr. Reyasudin for his help in determined my FYP tittle.

Synopsis of the project

This project is to study, design and develop a prototype of turbine and generator that will function in  water pipe. I am doing this project after research about how Malaysia got a big potential of making hydro power generator without using dam. This project will be used at the river of remote area to supply electricity for the villagers. As for the turbine, I will design a turbine that will working properly in the water pipe. The basic concept in this generator is by cutting the magnetic flux from rotor and stator. When the water flow, the turbine will spin which lead to cut the magnetic flux from rotor and stator. From the cutting the magnetic flux, we will get the generated power and it will stored in power storage.

Week 3

As for week 3, we were given briefing of the FYP 1. The briefing was conducted at TTL2 and the attendance of all students that taking the FYP 1 was compulsory.

The briefing was conducted by Madam Yuhanis Bt Mansor

In the briefing, Madam Yuhanis had briefed us about :

• Introduction
• Objectives
• Scope of projects
• Tittle selection
• Presentation day
• Submission date of project

After Madam briefed us with all the information, she remind us to confirm our title to our supervisor as the due date of registration is in week 5. For our tittle, we were required to carefully select the tittle of the project because it must reflect the capability and knowledge of UniKL BMI's degree student. For student who did't know what to do in his/her FYP, they may select the tittle that are offered by lecturer's FYP supervisor.

Week 2

For this week, i went to search for lecturer that still available to be the supervisor for FYP. I chose to have lecturer that expertise in Electrical Engineering. It is because i am an electronic student but choosing to make an electrical section of project. So there a lot of things that i need to ask for my FYP project to my supervisor. 

So, I went to meet lecturer which is Dr. Mohammed Reyasudin Bin Basir Khan. He is senior lecturer in Unikl BMI that expertise in Renewable Energy. I ask him if he willing to become my supervisor for FYP 1. Then, Dr. Reyasudin asked me to show my idea of project titles.

I showed several of my title to Dr Reyasudin that i think in Week 1. I am interested doing project in renewable energy which is "Development of Micro Power Generator in Water Pipe".

Dr. Reyasudin suggested for me to do some research first before confirming to take the tittle.

After the meeting, i went back then made some research basic about the tittle and project. I'm pretty sure that Dr. Reyasudin will be a great help by becoming my supervisor due his vase knowledge in renewable energy.