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Real-time sediment monitoring in hydropower plants

a b
M.B. Bishwakarma & H. Støle
a
Department of Hydraulic and Environmental, Engineering, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway
E-mail:
b
Department of Hydraulic and Environmental, Engineering, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway
E-mail:
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 Journal of Hydraulic Research Vol. 46, No. 2 (2008), pp. 282–288
© 2008 International Association of Hydraulic Engineering and Research

Real-time sediment monitoring in hydropower plants

Contrôle des sédiments en temps réel dans les usines hydro-électriques
M.B. BISHWAKARMA, PhD Candidate, Department of Hydraulic and Environmental, Engineering, NTNU,
Trondheim, Norway. E-mail: meg.bishwakarma@ntnu.no

H. STØLE, IAHR Member, Professor, Department of Hydraulic and Environmental, Engineering, NTNU,
Trondheim, Norway. E-mail: haakon.stole@ntnu.no

ABSTRACT
Sediments have posed great challenges in the operation of Run-of-River (RoR) hydropower plants mainly built on sediment-laden rivers. The
relationship between characteristics of sediments and the features of a power plant is not well known. The knowledge and experience gained so far
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is not enough to deal with the challenges that exist in the operation of hydropower plants with respect to sediment handling. Therefore, the need for
real-time sediment monitoring in RoR hydropower plants can hardly be exaggerated. In connection with the Optimum Sediment Handling research
programme, the authors were involved in sediment measurement in two of the power plants in Nepal and one in India. The real-time sediment
monitoring system that was developed at NTNU and the manual water sampling techniques were employed to monitor the sediment concentration just
upstream of the turbine. The sediment monitoring system was calibrated up to the level of observed concentration during the measurement period. In
this paper, the authors present the procedures, instrument setup and obtained results from the real-time sediment monitoring system that was employed
in these power plants.

RÉSUMÉ
Les sédiments ont posé de grands défis dans le fonctionnement des usines hydro-électriques au fil de l’eau (RoR) souvent construites sur des fleuves
chargés en sédiments. Le rapport entre les caractéristiques des sédiments et les dispositifs d’une centrale n’est pas bien connu. La connaissance
et l’expérience acquises jusqu’ici ne suffisent pas à relever les défis qui existent dans le fonctionnement des usines hydro-électriques vis à vis des
sédiments. De ce fait, l’accent a été mis sur le besoin de contrôler en temps réel les sédiments dans les usines hydro-électriques RoR. En liaison avec le
programme de recherche sur le contrôle optimum des sédiments, les auteurs ont pris part à la mesure des sédiments dans deux des centrales électriques
du Népal et une en Inde. Le système de contrôle en temps réel des sédiments qui a été développé à NTNU et les techniques d’échantillonnage manuel
de l’eau ont été utilisés pour surveiller la concentration en sédiments juste à l’amont de la turbine. Le système de contrôle des sédiments a été calibré
jusqu’au niveau de la concentration observée pendant la période de mesure. Dans cet article, les auteurs présentent les procédures, l’instrumentation
installée et les résultats obtenus par le système de contrôle en temps réel de sédiments qui a été utilisé dans ces centrales électriques.

Keywords: Hydropower, instrumentation, online monitoring, optimization, power plant, sediment measurement, suspended sediment

1 Introduction handling (OSH) in RoR hydropower plants. Dealing with sedi-

1.1 Background
South Asia is endorsed with huge hydropower potential. How-
ever, harsh topography, young geology and intense seasonal
rainfall have made this region vulnerable to erosion and sedi-
mentation. Due to these phenomena, Himalayan Rivers transport
substantial amount of sediments which pose great challenges in
the development of hydropower projects in this region. Støle
(1993) stated that reliable and efficient systems for sediment con-
trol and removal of sediments from withdrawn water will always
be one among several preconditions for successful use of water
resources in the Himalayas and other similar regions.
It is a hard fact that the state-of-the-art knowledge and expe-
rience is not adequate to address the issue of optimum sediment
ment induced turbine wear problems is a matter of studying the
sediment and turbine interaction in terms of cost. This requires
documentation and analysis of the time series of sediment data
as well as associated costs.
The normal practice is to construct settling basins to exclude
sediment particles larger than 0.2 mm. However, due to lack
of enough knowledge and information regarding the sediment
characteristics and their relationship with the power plant fea-
tures, economic optimization of the settling basins has not been
practically possible until now. Brekke (1991) stated that sand
erosion cannot be avoided in turbines because sedimentation of
the silt with grain size less than 0.1 mm is not practically possible
in the majority of cases. Brekke and Bardal (1994) highlighted
that it is not possible to solve sand erosion problems in a water

Revision received January 29, 2007/Open for discussion until October 31, 2008.

282
 Journal of Hydraulic Research Vol. 46, No. 2 (2008)
turbine by the hydraulic design alone, however, the effect of
sand erosion may be reduced by careful design. The experience
gained from the operation of power plants built on sediment-
laden rivers reveals that the sediment-induced problems are
multidisciplinary. A combined approach of design incorporating
civil and mechanical engineering experiences and planning for a
sediment-guided operation regime will help reduce the problem.
1.2 Why monitor sediment in real time
Sediment load through the turbine is one of the important param-
eters for the economic optimization of settling basins. Data on
the sediment load is needed to understand the sediment and tur-
bine interaction in a particular power plant. Documentation of
sediment load through the turbine requires recording of sediment
concentration and flow through the turbine. Normally, sediment
measurements are carried out at the headworks. This leads to
significant time lag between the sediment observation at head-
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works and the production records at the powerhouse. Manual
sampling and laboratory analysis requires some hours to obtain
the results. Moreover, the sediment concentration is not uniform
and varies largely with the rainfall, mass wasting and land slides
in the upstream catchment. Such events happen quite often dur-
ing the monsoon (mid-June to mid-September) particularly in
the Himalayan region. Generally the low-frequency manual sedi-
ment sampling cannot cover such events. To avoid such problems,
a system for automatic high-frequency recording of sediment
concentration is necessary.
Over the last decades, a number of techniques have been
developed to measure the sediment concentration. The differ-
ent measuring techniques are based mainly on the principles
of optics, acoustic, laser, nuclear radiation, conductivity, photo
imaging, erosion, density measurements in various ways, etc.
Each technique has a unique history of development, theory of
use, means of translating data into sediment transport in their
use, and solution to these problems (White, 1998). The selection
of sensors in a particular case is basically guided by the require-
ment of the research programme. Apart from the accuracy of
measurement, cost, suitability and lifetime of the measurement
equipment for a required application become important factors
to consider (Bishwakarma, 2005).
2 SMOOTH real-time sediment monitoring
2.1 Previous work in SMOOTH development
Støle (1997) conceptualized the system labelled Sediment Mon-
itoring and Operation Tool for Hydro projects (SMOOTH) in
1996. The SMOOTH system mainly consists of a tailor made
sampler, Coriolis Mass Flow Metre (CMF), a tailor-made pres-
sure breaker, connection pipes and accessories, software and
a computer. A pilot test of the first version of the SMOOTH
sampling technique was carried out in Turbine Unit 3 at Jhim-
ruk Hydropower Plant during August and September 1996.
Results from the 1996 tests are presented in Section 4. Støle
(1997) reported that the concept gave encouraging results and
Real-time sediment monitoring in hydropower plants 283
recommended for further work on the hardware as well as on
the software parts. Based on the laboratory tests, Støle and Karki
(1999) reported that the laboratory test results did not demonstrate
good correlation between the density and concentration, however,
the flow measurements showed linear relationship between the
sensor flow and the pipe flow. They further pointed out some
laboratory limitations such as presence of air bubbles in the flow,
difficulty in introducing the higher concentrations, difficulty in
obtaining the uniform mixing of sediment particles in the flow
covering sizes representative to the real case, etc.
2.2 SMOOTH operating principles
Figure 1 gives a schematic sketch of the assembled accessories
of SMOOTH in the laboratory.
The tailor-made SMOOTH sampler facilitates to abstract
water continuously from the main pipe (turbine approach flow
in the case of the power plant) to the sensor and returns the flow
back to the main pipe. The flexible pipes, connected between the
sensor and the sampler, facilitate to convey the abstracted water
through the sensor. The velocity head in the main pipeline pro-
vides the energy to the branch flow. The Coriolis Mass Flow meter
measures density, volume flow rate and temperature of the flow
that passes through the sensor. The manually taken water sam-
ples are analysed in the laboratory for concentration to establish
relationship between the automatic recorded density and manu-
ally measured concentration. This is termed the “concentration
density calibration”. Similarly, relationship between the main
pipe flow and the branch flow through the sensor is established
by varying the flow in the main pipe. This is termed the “flow
calibration”.
Qp Turbine flow
SMOOTH Pressurebreaker
sampler
Provision for
Hose pipe CMF Sensor manual sampling
Valve Transmitter P
C
PC Interface
Figure 1 SMOOTH real-time sediment monitoring system a principle
sketch
2.3 Laboratory test at NTNU
To eliminate the previous limitations the authors developed a test
rig for real-time sediment monitoring at NTNU. A close pipe loop
system was designed and constructed as shown in Fig. 2. The loop
was designed to facilitate a test situation where flow velocity, sed-
iment concentration and sediment particle sizes could reasonably
represent the real situation in RoR power plants.
A computer programme was developed to process, dis-
play and log the measured data in a specified interval. With
the given calibration coefficients the programme computes the
 284 M.B. Bishwakarma and H. Støle Journal of Hydraulic Research Vol. 46, No. 2 (2008)

Transparent section 80

60

Pipe flow (l/s)

EMF
Pipe loop 40
CMF025
CMF100
SMMOTH sampler

20
Sensor & transmitter

0
0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25
Figure 2 Test rig in the laboratory for real-time sediment monitoring
Sensor flow (l/s)
Figure 3 Pipe flow and sensor flow relation
concentration and turbine flow in real-time. The processed values
are displayed in the graphical form in real-time. To minimize the
effect of fluctuation in the observed data, the programme aver-
ages the measurements taken over 10 s and these values are used
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for computing the concentration and pipe/turbine flow. The com- Concentration density relationship
puted concentration and turbine flow are then displayed on the Lab data with CM F 025
8 000
screen and saved into a file in a user specified interval and loca-
tion. The programme also facilitates concentration cut-off limit.
Concentration (PPM)

An alarm is displayed on the screen if the observed concentration 6 000

reaches a preset limit.
4 000
2.3.1 Laboratory test results
Laboratory tests included measurement of flow and sediment
2 000
concentration. Attempts were made to correlate the main pipe
flow with the sensor flow and manually measured sediment con-
centration with the sensor measured density and temperature. 0
CMF100 and CMF025 sensors were employed for this purpose. 997 998 999 1 000 1 001 1 002
The desired level of concentration was achieved by supplying Density by CMF (Kg/m 3)
sediments to the loop. The velocity of the flow in the loop was Figure 4 Concentration density relationship
kept in the range of 6–7 m/s to obtain fully turbulent flow and
thus good distribution of sediments was achieved. Water samples
were abstracted manually and concentration analysis was carried
out in the laboratory using standard filtration method. The sensor
were carried out in 12 MW Jhimruk Hydropower Plant and
recorded densities were corrected for the reference temperature
60 MW Khimti I Hydropower Plant (KHP) in Nepal in the mon-
of 20◦ C to eliminate the temperature effect. The obtained rela-
soon of 2003 and 2004, respectively. The main objective was
tionship between the pipe and sensor flow is given in Fig. 3 and the
to study how the turbine efficiency decreases as a result of the
relationship between the concentration and the corrected density
sediment load passing through a turbine over time. In addition a
is presented in Fig. 4.
sediment monitoring programme was carried out in a 1500 MW
The laboratory results revealed that the system was capable of
Nathpa Jhakri Hydropower Plant in Himanchal state in India
monitoring flow and sediment concentration in real-time. Similar
in the late monsoon 2004 and the monsoon 2005. The sedi-
pattern of relationship as shown in Figs 3 and 4 is expected to
ment monitoring part of these programmes is briefly described
achieve in the field setting in power plants. However, it should be
in Sections 3.1–3.3.
noted that the flow relationship depends on the flow velocity in
In all of the measurements, apart from the automatic record-
the main pipe, location of the mouth of the sampler intake, size
ing of density, sediment samples were manually abstracted from
of the pipe and fittings, etc. Therefore, it is important to carryout
the downstream of the sensor. Additional samples were also
field tests and calibration.
abstracted for the particle size distribution and mineral content
analysis. A sediment laboratory was set up at the site and sedi-
3 Sediment monitoring in power plants ment samples were analysed for concentration. The particle size
distribution (PSD) was carried out at NTNU and the mineral
As part of the Optimum Sediment Handling (OSH) Research content analysis was carried out at Hydro Lab in Kathmandu,
Programme, sediment and efficiency measurement programmes Nepal.
 Journal of Hydraulic Research Vol. 46, No. 2 (2008) Real-time sediment monitoring in hydropower plants 285

3.1 Jhimruk Hydropower Plant in Nepal

3.1.1 Power plant description
Jhimruk Hydropower Plant (JHP) is located in Pyuthan district of
the Mid-Western Region of Nepal. This is a 12 MW RoR power
plant built and commissioned in 1994. Butwal Power Company
(BPC) owns and operates the plant. The salient features of JHP
are as follows.

Installed capacity : 12 MW Figure 6 Installed SMOOTH at Unit 3, Støle (1997)

Design head : 205 m
Design discharge : 7.05 m3 /s
3.2 Khimti I Hydropower Plant in Nepal
Diversion weir : 205 m overflow length, crest elevation
738 masl, curvilinear with 3.2.1 Power plant description
settling basins and intake Khimti I Hydropower Plant (KHP) is located in Dolakha district
Settling basins : two parallel basins each of in the Central region of Nepal. KHP is a 60 MW RoR power plant
42 m × 5.5 m × 7 m built and commissioned in 2000. Himal Power Limited (HPL)
Headrace tunnel : About 1 km owns and operates the plant. The salient features of KHP are as
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Penstock : 250 m long (inclined, steel lined) follows.

Powerhouse : Semi underground
Turbines : 3 units, Francis, delivered by Kværner Installed capacity : 60 MW
Speed : 1000 rpm Design head : 680 m
Tailrace : Short tailrace channel Design discharge : 10.75 m3 /s
Diversion weir : 2.5 m high Concrete/boulder, crest
elevation at 1,272 masl
Settling basins : 2 numbers each 90 m × 12 m × 12 m
3.1.2 Sediment measurement setup Headrace tunnel : 7.8 km
As a pilot test programme Dr. Støle installed the SMOOTH sys- Penstock : 1 km long (inclined, steel lined),
tem at Unit 3 of the Jhimruk Hydropower Plant in Nepal in 1996. diameter 1.8–2.0 m
A hole was made in the dismantling pipe of Unit 3 and a socket Powerhouse : Underground
was welded to the pipe. The SMOOTH sampler was connected to Turbines : 5 units, horizontal axis Pelton 12 MW
the socket directing the sampler inlet against the flow direction. each
Figure 5 shows the pilot test setup of the SMOOTH. Speed : 750 rpm
During the sediment and efficiency measurement programme Tailrace : 1.2 km tunnel
in 2003 there was a plan to employ SMOOTH for sediment mon-
itoring. During this time the test rig was constructed for testing
of different sensors at NTNU. The new setup of the SMOOTH 3.2.2 Sediment measurement setup
was assembled and tested but could not be ready for the instal- The installed SMOOTH set up at Unit-1 of the Khimti I
lation at Jhimruk. Therefore, automatic recording of sediment Hydropower Plant is shown in Figs 7 and 8.
concentration was not possible. However, manual SMOOTH A hole was drilled and a socket with reducer was welded to the
sampling technique was applied to carry out the measurement. pipe that leads to the lower nozzle. The SMOOTH sampler was
For this purpose, the SMOOTH sampler was installed at the
same location as in 1996. The measurement setup is shown in
Figs 5 and 6.

Pipe leading to
lower nozzle

Flow
SMOOTH sampler

Figure 7 Installed SMOOTH sampler at the pipe leading to lower nozzle

Figure 5 Jhimruk Power Plant Unit 3 in Unit 1
 286 M.B. Bishwakarma and H. Støle Journal of Hydraulic Research Vol. 46, No. 2 (2008)

Pressure breaker for

manual sampling

CMF sensor and

transmitter
Location to install the
SMOOTH sampler

Figure 8 Installed SMOOTH real-time sediment monitoring system Figure 9 Preparation for the installation at Unit 3
in Unit 1

then connected to the reducer. Rest of the connection was made as

shown in Fig. 8. A similar sampler was connected just upstream
of the bifurcation to record static and differential pressures for
the turbine relative efficiency measurement. SMOOTH sampler
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3.3 Nathpa Jhakri Hydropower Plant in India

3.3.1 Power plant description
The Nathpa Jhakri Hydropower Plant (NJHP) is located in the
Kinnaur and Shimla districts of Himanchal Pradesh, around
150 km north-east of Shimla in India. NJHP is a 1500 MW RoR Figure 10 Installed SMOOTH sampler at Unit 3
power plant with a daily peaking reservoir. The power plant has
been in operation from the end of 2003. Nathpa Jhakri Power
Corporation Ltd. owns and operates this power plant. The salient A modified SMOOTH sampler was designed and fabricated
features of the power plant are given below. to fit in the existing hole that was connected with the air release
system located between the main valve and the start of the
Installed capacity : 1500 MW spiral casing. The required accessories of the SMOOTH were
Design head : 428 m assembled at the laboratory of NTNU before dispatching the
Design discharge : 405 m3 /s package to the site. Shutdown of the particular unit was required
Dam : 57.5 m high concrete structure with 4 to install the SMOOTH sampler. The air release system was
side intakes removed as shown in Fig. 9 and the SMOOTH sampler was
Settling basins : 4 numbers underground, each installed as planned. Fig. 10 shows the installed SMOOTH
525 m × 16 m × 27 m sampler.
Headrace tunnel : 10.15 m diameter and 27.3 km long
Pressure shaft : 3 numbers 4.9 m diameter 572 to 623 m
long steel lined shafts 4 Results from power plants
Powerhouse : Underground cavern
220 m × 20 m × 49 m The employed SMOOTH package measured mass flow rate, den-
Turbines : 6 numbers vertical axis Francis units sity and temperature of the water that passed through the sensor.
each with 250 MW As the density of water changes according to the temperature
capacity GE Hydro supplied and it is important to convert the observed densities to a reference
installed the turbines temperature. In this case 20◦ C was taken as a reference tempera-
Tailrace tunnel : 10.15 m diameter and 982 m long ture. Manually measured concentrations were correlated with the
automatically recorded densities by the sensor at the correspond-
ing time. For the correlation, concentration lower than 200 PPM
3.3.2 Sediment measurement setup were not considered as this falls under the accuracy limit of the
The main objective of this sediment measurement pro- CMF sensor. The concentration density relationship is given in
gramme was to measure the sediment exposure of the turbine. Figs 11–14.
This included development of equipment and procedures for Based on the established relationship, all observed densities
online measurement of sediment concentration in the turbine were converted to concentrations and the sediment load through
flow. the turbine was computed.
 Journal of Hydraulic Research Vol. 46, No. 2 (2008) Real-time sediment monitoring in hydropower plants 287

Concentration density relationship Concentration density relationship

Jhimruk HPP Unit 3,1996 Nathpa Jhakri HPP Unit-5, 2005
12000 8000

Concentration (PPM)
10000
Concentration (PPM)

6000
8000

6000 4000

4000
2000
2000

0 0
998 1000 1002 1004 1006 1008 996 997 998 999 1000 1001 1002
3
Density (kg/m3) Density (kg/m )
Figure 11 Jhimruk HPP Unit 3 Figure 13 Nathpa Jhakri HPP Unit 5
Downloaded by [University of Chicago] at 06:38 01 March 2013

Concentration density relationship

Concentration density relationship Nathpa Jhakri HPP Unit-3 (2004) & Unit-6 (2005)
Khim ti I HP P Unit 1, 2004
8000
4 000
Concentration (PPM)
Concentration (PPM)

3 000 6000

2 000 4000

1 000
2000

0
996 997 998 999 1000 1001 0
Density (kg/m ) 3 996 997 998 999 1000 1001 1002
3
Density (kg/m )
Figure 12 Khimti HPP Unit 1
Figure 14 Nathpa Jhakri HPP Units 3 and 6

5 Discussion
The repeated tests conducted in the laboratory demonstrated that
sediment concentration as well as the turbine flow could be mea-
sured by the SMOOTH system. The SMOOTH sampler was able
to abstract water samples continuously from the main pipe in a
reliable manner.
The 2004 monsoon in Nepal was relatively dry. The sediment
measurement in Khimti showed that the measured concentrations
were too low compared to previous years. Therefore SMOOTH
calibration for higher concentration was not possible. However
the observed relationship showed a reasonable trend. The trend
is similar to that observed in Jhimruk during 1996.
The results from Nathpa Jhakri shows a similar trend. The
difference in measured densities in Figs 13 and 14 is due to the
factory calibration of two different CMFs. This clearly indicates
the need for the field calibration of the individual instrument set
so that the derived concentrations can be compared.
The results from the field measurement reveal that SMOOTH
is capable of measuring sediment concentration in real time, pro-
vided that it is calibrated for certain range of concentration in
the beginning and updated as more data are available. However,
establishing good relation between the flows was a challenge.
In Khimti it was almost impossible to measure the sensor flow
and hence it was decided to release the flow through the sen-
sor continuously. Whereas, in Nathpa Jhakri, flow measurement
was possible but the results were not considered good enough
for computing the sediment load. This could be due to the flow
situation at the location of the installation. A test in the laboratory
setting has been planned to understand the reason.
As the CMF sensor principle is based on density of water, the
concentration of organic materials having density equivalent to
water is neglected and therefore this system measures more true
concentration of sediments than by the filtration method. For cal-
ibration it is essential to take more frequent samples during the
rising and falling limb of the sediment concentration rather than
 288 M.B. Bishwakarma and H. Støle
more measurements during the normal periods. While measuring
the density, velocity of flow through the sensor is an impor-
tant parameter. So, the velocity of flow should be sufficiently
high in order to transport the sediment particles through the sen-
sor without any deposition. Deposition of sediment or presence
of air bubbles in the sensor will lead to change in density and
consequently the concentration.
The sensor tube may be eroded after a certain period of opera-
tion. Authors’ opinion is that the sensor should last for a couple of
years without significant problems as the velocity of flow through
the sensor is lower compare to the velocity in the main pipe.
However, it is worthwhile to update the concentration density
relationship.
6 Conclusion
The present knowledge and experience is not adequate to deter-
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mine the OSH at ROR power plants. Manual sampling and
laboratory analyses of sediment concentration alone do not meet
the requirements of the OSH Research Programme. Therefore a
system of online sediment monitoring is essential in the power
plants.
The laboratory as well as field tests revealed that the SMOOTH
system can monitor the sediment concentration in real time. From
data comparability point of view, it is important to establish
concentration density relationship in the field setting. Flow mea-
surement has still been a challenge. The authors are working on
a possible solution.
During these measurement programmes, the SMOOTH sys-
tem was installed in the pipe just upstream of the turbine to
document the sediment load that passes through it over time.
However, this can also be installed after the settling basins to
use as an early warning system for a power plant operation once
sufficient sediment and other associated data become available
to establish the concentration cut-off limit.
Acknowledgments
This paper is based on part of the research work on Optimum
Sediment Handling (OSH) jointly carried out by GE Hydro,
Journal of Hydraulic Research Vol. 46, No. 2 (2008)
Statkraft, Himal Power Limited, Butwal Power Company, Kath-
mandu University, NTNU and Hydro Lab. The authors express
their sincere gratitude to these organizations and the involved
staff for their cooperation and support during the measurements.
The authors also thank the authority and the staff of Nathpa Jhakri
Hydropower Plant for their cooperation.
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