Development of the helical reaction hydraulic turbine. Final technical report, July 1, 1996--June 30, 1998

The present report contains the final results obtained during July 1996--July 1998. This report should be considered in association with the Annual Progress Report submitted in July 1997 due to the fact that not all of the intermediate results reflected in the Progress Report have been included in the Final Report. The aim of the project was to build a helical hydraulic turbine prototype and demonstrate its suitability and advantages as a novel apparatus to harness hydropower from ultra low-head rivers and other free water streams such as ocean currents or rivers without dams. The research objectives of the project are: Design, optimization and selection of the hydro foil section for the helical turbine; Design of the turbine for demonstration project; Construction and testing of the turbine module; Assessing test results and determining scale-up feasibility. The research conducted under this project has substantially exceeded the original goals including designing, constructing and testing of a scaled-up triple-helix turbine, as well as developing recommendations for application of the turbine for direct water pumping in irrigation systems and for future use in wind farms. Measurements collected during two years of turbine testing are kept in the PI files