II~dr,,w~hm~al Con.~tructton. Vol. 32. A~, 3.

1998

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DESIGN OF THE HYDROPOWER EQUIPMENT

OF THE PURNARI-II HYDROELECTRIC STATION

V. A. Linyuchev

The Purnari-II hydrostation being constructed on the Arakhthos River (Greece) is located in the Arta city limits, 2-km
below the operating Purnari-I hydrostation with a capacity of 315 MW. The purpose of the Purnari-I hydrostation is to
reregulate the peak discharges of the Purnari-I hydrostation and to irrigate farmlands adjacent to Arta. The hydrostation
customer is the State Power Corporation (PPC) of Greece. The hydrostation was designed by the design department of the
corporation in 1988. Construction of the hydrostation began in 1989 with the construction of the foundation of the headworks
of the right-bank irrigation canal.
The main structures of the hydrostation include a channel concrete overflow dam without gates, powerhouse with two
bulb units, and the headworks of the right-and left-bank irrigation canals. Automatic hydraulic gates of the "Aviagate" type
are installed on the headworks of the canals. In addition to the gates, a small unit with a pipe (S-shaped) hydraulic turbine for
using the energy of irrigation releases is installed on the right-bank headworks.
Designing, delivery, and assembly of the main and auxiliary equipment of the hydrostation on the basis of interna-
tional tenders won are being accomplished by a consortium headed by the Greek firm Viokat Corporation as part of the
I~nergomash6ksport joint-stock company (JSC) (Russia), Siemens firm (Germany), and Suhlzer-Ascher Weiss (Switzerland).
The bulb turbine was designed by the Kharkov Turboatom Plant, the generator by the Kharkov l~lektrotyazhmash Plant, the
mechanical equipment (gates, trash racks) by the JSC Moscow Special Design Office of Steel Hydraulic Structures and
Mechanisms (Mosgidrostal'), the auxiliary equipment by the JSC State Planning, Surveying, and Research Institute (Gidro-
proekt), the transformer by the JSC Zaporozh'e Transformer Plant, and the pipe unit by Suhlzer-Ascher Weiss. Coordination
of the design works of the consortium was entrusted to Gidroproekt. Assembly of the equipment and delivery of the auxiliary
equipment were realized by the leader of the consortium - Viokat Corp.
The terms of the contract defined that about 45 % of the manufacture and deliveries of equipment should be provided
by the Greek party. Therefore, a part of the components of the turbines and generators as well as all metalwork of the
mechanical equipment were manufactured at the Viokat Industrial plant (Thivai c!ty), and all auxiliary equipment was
delivered by Viokat Corp. with the use of a range of goods on the Greek market.
The main characteristics of the hydropower equipment of the Purnari-II hydrostation are given below:

Turbine
Horizontal bulb ............................................. PL- 15-GK450
Capacity, MW:
design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.15
maximum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.70
Heads, m:
design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . l 1.0
maximum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.9
minimum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.6
Runner diameter, mm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...................... 4500
Speed, rpm ...................................................... 125
Emergency closing of gate apparatus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Load drive
Turbine manufacturers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . Turboatom, Vacate Industrial

Translated from Gidrotekhnicheskoe Stroitel'stvo, No. 3, pp. 52-54, March. 1998.

0018-8220/98/3203-0171 $20.00 9 1998 Plenum Publishing Corporation 171

 Generator
Power. kVA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18,000
Voltage, kV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3
Moment of inertia, tons-m 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1000
Cooling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Air with coolers and two tans inside bulb
Excitation system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Static thyristor
Suppliers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F~lektrotyazhmash, Vacate Industrial
Thyristor excitation system supplier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Siemens

Turbine Control System

Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Digital
Pressure in control system, bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Pressure boilers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Have nitrogen cushion above oil with separating diaphragm
Feedback of servomotors of gate apparatus and
runner ...................................................... Electric
Speed detector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Electromagnetic with gear on turbine shaft
Fire-extinguishing system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Delivery of CO 2 to bulb of unit (one per two units)
Design and delivery of control equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Suhlzer-Ascher Weiss

Small Unit
Turbine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Turbine with horizontal shaft
Turbine capacity. MW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.06
Heads, m:
maximum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3
minimum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3
Speed. rpm ...................................................... 203

Generator
Power, kW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2000
Voltage, kV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3
Generator cooling system .......... ". . . . . . . . . Closed air with air cooling in water air coolers
Suppliers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Suhlzer-Ascher Weiss - turbine and controller, Skoda - generator

All three generators are connected by switches to one 38,000-kVA step-up transformers with high-voltage regulation
within 93-161 kV. The supplier of the transformer is Zaporozhtransformator.
The mechanical equipment of the hydrostation includes inclined trash racks with steel crossbars rigidly fastened in
concrete: emergency-guard gates of the turbine intakes with electrical hoisting mechanisms; stop logs of the draft tubes,
which are raised by a 2 x 100-kN gantry crane by means of a clamp beam, and the 1000-kN bridge crane of the machine
hall of the hydrostation. The mechanical equipment of the hydrostation (except the cranes) was designed by Mosgidrostal" and
manufactured at the Viokat Industrial plant.
The contract for supplying and assembling the equipment was signed by the consortium with the PPC at the end of
1990. During final approval of the technical specifications of the contract and number of changes were introduced into the bid
specifications with simultaneous correction of the cost declared in the bid:
the guard gates of the intakes of the bulb turbines lowered by crane into still water were replaced by emergency-
guard gates lower by electric winches, since it was impossible to guarantee the absence of the flow of water through the
turbine in the event two adjacent vanes of the gate apparatus do not close;
on the basis of the results of hydraulic tests of the intakes of the bulb turbine at Gidroproekt's laboratory, the
configurations of the piers of the intakes and height of the side walls were changed for fulfillir~ the rather stringent require-
ments of the specifications with respect to nonuniformity of the distribution of water velocities and discharges over the area
of the intake: + 10% with respect to velocity and + 5 % with respect to discharge;
the synchronous generator of the pipe unit was replaced by an induction generator:

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 the process water-supply system of the units was replaced: to reduce the effect of large fluctuations of the upper and
lower pool levels, the intake of water into the system and the outlet of water were done at one level - into the upper pool.
The water filters with rotating screens were replaced by filters with stationary screens (according to Gidroproekt's
drawings), since the experience of operating the upstream Purnari-I hydrostation showed that the rotating screens of the filters
uhimately are clogged by trash suspended in the water and jam.
Of the special features of the layout of the auxiliary equipment of the hydrostation we must point out the customer's
adopted arrangement of the rather complicated general-station cooling and process water system in a room under the turbine
runner pits. The circulating lubrication systems of the unit's bearings, servomotors of the gate apparatus, steel supports of the
runner chamber and cooling water system for the No. 3 pipe unit, and supports for the servomotors of the gate apparatus
should be located there. This led to a quite close filling of the room with filters, pumps, and pipelines, power and control
cables and, naturally, hindered mutual coordination of the service lines of various suppliers of the system and also caused
additional problems when assembling the equipment. In our design practice the process water-supply systems of bulb units are
located in rooms above the bulb units, and the lubrication and drainage systems are located in lower rooms.
The absence of strict demands of the population with respect to ensuring sanitary releases of water into the river is
another unusual, in our practice, feature of the hydrodevelopments in the lower course of the Arakhthos River. Therefore. the
Purnari-I hydrostation operates in a peak-load regime without any releases of water into the river in off-peak periods of the
load curve. Cessation of water releases can last more than a month. At this time the dry river channel is used, for instance,
for mining inert materials or construction works for hydraulic structures. The Purnari-II hydrostation projected called for
complete emptying of the reservoir with draining the water through the bulb turbine for dismantling the upstream cofferdam
of the second phase of construction. The equipment suppliers categorically objected to this owing to the danger of the passage
of the coarse bed load through the bulb turbines.
At present all design works and delivery of the consortium's equipment are completed and intense assembly of the
units is underway. In March 1997 works should begin on testing and accepting the equipment of the first unit, and in July
1997 its commercial operation should start.
The experience of the design works on the Purnari-ll hydrostation showed the need for their strict coordination within
the consortium by its leader. In the consortium agreement with respect to the equipment of the Purnari-ll hydrostation the
role of the leader was entrusted to the assembly firm Viokat Corp., which excluded qualified coordination of a rather
complex set of design problems. The customer requested that the coordination of design works be entrusted to Gidroproekt,
but this was done too late, when a large part of the drawings of the design departments of the plant had already been
approved by the customer.
As an example of the lack of coordination we can cite the implementation of the design of anchoring the embedded
parts of the bulb unit. In our practice the design of anchoring heavily loaded parts of a unit, runner pits of a Kaplan turbine,
stator of the bulb turbine, etc., is done by a design organization and is coordinated with the design departments of the plants.
In the given case the design departments of the plants coordinate with the PPC their drawings for manufacture, having limited
themselves to the comment that the embedded parts must be connected to the reinforcement of the concrete. This problem of
making the anchors in the main concrete arose at the time of placing the concrete of the underwater part, and Gidroproekt
without delay ought to have made calculations and drawings of the anchorage of embedded parts. This required the delivery
of large-diameter reinforcement from Russia.

CONCLUSIONS

1. The experience of design works on the hydropower equipment of a hydrostation as large of a large number of
suppliers requires a technical coordinator of the works with strict obligations on coordinating the designs of equipment with
this coordinator before sending to the customer.
2. At the stage of preparing the tender documents for complete deliver), of hydrostation equipment it is necessary to
enlist a design organization for a general assessment of the layout of equipment given in the tender drawings, for preparing
alternative variants of the layout, and simplifying the process of final coordination of changes in the contract specifications in
the case of winning the tender.

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