Study on the Application of Particle Image Velocimetry with Resin and Rhodamine B as Alternative Seeding Particles in Pico Hydro Cross Flow Hydro Turbine

Abstract

One of the solutions to overcome the lack of electricity problem in rural area is Crossflow pico-scale hydropower. In improving cross-flow turbine performance, understanding fluid phenomena is needed. Particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurement is one of the methods used to visualize the fluid flow phenomena inside the turbine. Expensive price of seeding particle leads to find the solution for this PIV method. The objective of this study is to use a cheap seeding particle from cheaper materials, mainly resin and rhodamine B. Besides that, in this study, PIV measurement is compared to 2D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with multiphase volume of fluid model. From the results, several phenomena can be observed at both of the methods (PIV and CFD) such as separation in the blade tip. Therefore, this study showed that an inexpensive material resin and rhodamine B as a seeding particle has a potential and ability to represent flow inside pico-hydro cross-flow turbine.