usu professor designs new valve for logan canyon hydro plant
TRANSCRIPT
USU professor designs new valve for Logan Canyon hydro plant
Posted: Wednesday, May 14, 2014 11:45 pm | Updated: 12:45 pm, Fri May 16, 2014.
By Kevin Opsahl |
Logan city recently installed a new valve for a hydro plant at the mouth of Logan Canyon, which isexpected to last much longer than its predecessor and is $70,000 cheaper than officials originallythought possible.
The newly installed part was created by Mike Johnson, Utah State University professor ofengineering who works at the nearby USU Water Research Lab. This submerged Howell-Bungervalve is designed to divert water from the turbine in an emergency situation, like a power outage, tokeep the flow of the river uninterrupted.
“The way we had it before and this thing opened up, it could be a little scary for that fisherman. Now it’s much safer and a much better wayto put the water back into the river,” said Mark Montgomery, director of Logan Light and Power.
Montgomery was referring to a problem with the older water bypass valve — installed in the mid-1980s — that had become damagedrecently, leaving the plant with no way to dissipate the significant high-pressure downstream energy, 300 megawatts worth, when the waterturbines tripped off.
“So we had to either realign with steel, which would have cost $100,000 or more,” Montgomery said. “In the process, Mike Johnsoncontacted us and said, ‘I’ve got this energy diffusion hood that we’ve been working on, and we’d like to put it on your valve.’ The cost wasmuch less.”
He called the installation of the valve “a rare win-win occasion.”
Utah State professor Mike Johnson talks about a 1/5th scale model of a water bypass valve on Wednesday afternoon at the USU
Water Research Lab. A full size version of Johnson's design was installed at Logan's hydro electric plant at the mouth of the
canyon. (John Zsiray/Herald Journal)
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“Mike wanted to see how his diffusion hood would work in a submerged situation, and we also needed a situation to repair our tail base onthe hydro, and it was a cheaper solution,” Montgomery explained.
The Light and Power director noted that Logan’s hydro plants are constructed differently, so Johnson’s design could not be used on anyother plant.
Johnson said the new valve is a rare design that works for the Hydro 2 Plant.
“I was interested to see if this application that we developed in the late ’90s — and had been developing ever since — if this would be agreat candidate for that,” he said. “And we had done some work with a HB valve manufacturer demonstrating that could be submerged,and this one had been operating since 1985 when it was installed. So this appeared to be a good candidate.”
The valve is designed to work only in emergency situations when the water turbines get tripped up, as in the case of a power outage,Johnson said.
The USU professor called the new valve a benefit to Logan city residents.
“We now have a system that is hydraulically better, which means long term it’s going to last longer,” he said. “And the immediate benefit toLogan city residents is that we came up with a solution that didn’t cost as much.”
According to the Logan’s website, Hydro 2 Plant was commissioned in 1985 after Utah Power and Light abandoned the site in favor of acoal-fired plant in Wyoming in 1973.
“After several years of negotiations with various federal, state and local agencies, we were able to come to agreements and obtain alicense to build and operate a new hydroelectric plant there,” the Logan website says.
This plant is also connected through a high speed-fiber optic network to the other hydroelectric plant and to the 24-hour dispatch center,installed in 1997 and 1998.
The Utah Water Research Laboratory is a stand-alone facility located at Utah State University that collaborates with government andprivate sectors to address technical aspects of water-related issues, according to the USU website.
“I think it’s important to know that the water lab is interested in local problems. We like to be a benefit to community, and what we do herehas applications worldwide,” Johnson said.
Twitter: KevJourno
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