SAFL receives $0.5M grant from DOE and Alstom Power to advance environmentally friendly hydroturbines

Civil engineering professors John Gulliver and Fotis Sotiropoulos and professor emeritus Roger Arndt have received $250,000 over two years for the research project, "Turbine aeration design software for mitigating adverse environmental impacts resulting from conventional hydropower turbines," from the Department of Energy to develop and validate computational models for simulating turbulent two-phase flows in aerating hydroturbines to help the industry improve the efficiency of environmentally friendly hydropower facilities.  The DOE funds will be matched 100% by Alstom Power, a leading hydroturbine manufacturer, who will partner with SAFL in this project.  In addition, the Hydropower Research Foundation will allow one of its fellows at the University of Minnesota to participate in the research, a contribution of $90,000 to the project. The project will combine a physical test bed with new analytical and computational models for investigating how hydropower turbine blade shape and operation affect oxygen transfer and aeration.