News

More flexibility in hydropower requires new monitoring strategies and advances data analytics. New paper published by Weiqiang Zhao and Alexandre Presas about this topic in Structural Health Monitoring: On the use of vibrational hill charts for improved condition monitoring and diagnosis of hydraulic turbines. With the knowledge acquired in this paper, more flexible and safe operation of hydraulic turbines can be achieved, assessing the new challenges in this topic and ensuring a safe transition to more renewable energy.

David Valentín together with the members of CDIF have studied a catastrophic failure in a solar tracker located in the south of Spain. Torsional galloping due to high speed wind have been identified as the cause of the failure, which is a dangerous aerodynamic and self-excited phenomenon. This study will help to avoid similar failures in the future following the recommended actions.

El doctorat començaria a partir de febrer del 2022 amb una durada de 3 anys. El doctorat és una col·laboració industrial del CDIF amb l'empresa Vak Kimsa, fabricant d'agitadors i mescladors en línia. El candidat treballaria 80% a l'empresa i 20% al CDIF.

Last September 2021 CDIF performed the second experimental campaing in Caniçada hydropower plant, part of the WP8 of XFLEX Hydro project. The test will be used to study the possibility to convert the units to variable speed.

Weiqiang Zhao has presented his PhD Thesis entitled "Improved Condition Monitoring of Hydraulic Machines based on Artificial Intelligence Techniques" under the supervision of Prof. Eduard Egusquiza and Alexandre Presas. The presentation has been conducted online. This PhD is one of the first steps that approaches artificial intelligence to the monitoring of hydraulic turbines.

Weiqiang Zhao has published the last of his papers for his PhD Thesis. This investigation permits to predict the Overload Instability that sometimes occur in Francis turbines and therefore increase their operating range. He has used data-driven methods and artificial intelligence techniques for the analysis.

Matias Bossio has presented his PhD Thesis entitled "Analysis of the dynamic response of industrial agitators" under the supervision of Carme Valero and David Valentín and with the collaboration of the company VAK KIMSA. The presentation has been conducted in online format. This PhD has been founded by AGAUR and Generalitat de Catalunya within the scolarship Doctorats Industrials.

CDIF has performed experimental measurements in Caniçada hydropower plant with the purpose of evaluating the units conversion to variable speed. The tests will be used to validate numerical models used in the study. This is part of WP8 of XFLEX Hydro european project.

CDIF has installed a monitoring system in G1 and G3 of Vogelgrun powerplant. Monitored data of both groups will help to asses the wear and tear of the different turbine components, being able to quantify the benefits of hybridising one of the units with a battery. This is part of the WP9 of the XFLEX Hydro project.

Alexandre Presas has published his latest research on the prediction of runner stress from stationary sensors. By means of vibration measurements and an Artificial Neural Network he has been able to estimate the main and alternate stresses of a larges Francis runner.

CDIF has succesfully installed an online monitoring system in Totana solar plant (Murcia, Spain) for controlling the vibration of the solar panels due to excessive wind. This is part of a task of an industrial project in collaboration with Endesa.