Obervermuntwerk II Penstock Design

P. Meusburger1, W. Glas2
1
Vorarlberger Illwerke AG, Batloggstr. 36, 6780 Schruns, Austria
2
ITEG IT-Engineers GmbH, Conradstr. 5, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
E-mail: peter.meusburger@illwerke.at

Abstract
At the beginning of the paper the hydraulic layout and the chosen machine type of the
Obervermuntwerk II hydro power plant is presented. The armored part of the headrace is
divided into three sections with different requirements to the steel linings. The different
dimensioning methods used are introduced and the results are depicted for 8 stations along the
armored pipe length.

Subsequent to the dimensioning against internal pressure the dimensioning against outer
pressure using the formula of Amstutz is given which becomes decisive for the utmost part of
the steel liners.

To visualise the influence of fatigue load on the dimensioning of the penstock steel liners, a
fatigue load spectrum was calculated by ITEG IT-Engineers GmbH using the 1D CFD-code
of Illwerke. It is based on the real operation of the Kops II hydro power plant and encloses a
whole year of operation. The method to transform the power over time signal to a machine
opening over time used as input data set for 1D calculation is described in detail. The
calculation results are presented for the high head manifold as a load spectrum with 100 load
steps.

The new Obervermunt II HPP of Illwerke

Actually the Vorarlberger Illwerke AG is preparing the erection of the new pumped storage
hydro power plant Obervermuntwerk II at the southern end of the Montafon. The new hydro
power plant will use the descent of around 300 meters from the Silvrettasee to the Vermuntsee
which is already used by the existing Obervermuntwerk since approximately 65 years.

The new pumped storage hydro power plant Obervermuntwerk II will be equipped with two
machine sets. The plant is designed to fulfil the requirements for pumped storage as well as
for power frequency control and peak energy production. Therefore the hydraulic machines
will be built as horizontal ternary units with a maximum turbine power of PTU,max = 360 [MW]
and a nominal power of PPU,nom. = 320 [MW] in pump operation. The machines comprise a
Francis turbine, a motor generator and a single stage storage pump in order to be able to react
to changing demands of the power grid in a flexible way. To adapt the pump characteristic
curve to the varying pump head and to ensure the utmost efficiency the pump is equipped
with adjustable guide vanes.

The waterway with an overall length of around 3200 [m] in the head- and approximately 500
[m] in the tailrace system will be erected completely underground. The waterway will be lined
mainly with concrete. Steel linings in the headrace are limited to the area between surge tank
and powerhouse. Additionally, steel liners are provided in the tailrace system to seal the
powerhouse against external water pressure. The headrace is designed as a deep lying gallery
with a constant inclination of ~9%. A short penstock with an inclination of ~100% and an
overall length of approximately 100 [m] will connect the gallery with the high head manifold.

Static Penstock Design

The armored part of the headrace is divided into three sections which are different with regard
to the load capacity of the surrounding rock mass:

1. Thin-shell armored protection with inner concrete ring: At the beginning of the
armored headrace section the rock overburden is sufficient to cover the whole internal
pressure (σF,min < σpi). In this section the steel shell only is foreseen to seal the hydraulic
system. As the armored protection has no contribution to the load capacity of the system
against internal pressure, the steel shell is designed for crack bridging exclusively
following [1]. The shell thickness is given by the minimum thickness due to production
technology. To cover the external water pressure the steel linings will be reinforced with
an inner concrete ring.
2. Armored protection with rock contribution: In the area where the rock overburden is not
capable to cover the whole internal pressure (σmin,cross_section < σpi) steel linings designed
under consideration of the rock mass contribution to the load capacity as depicted in [2]
are implemented.
3. Armored protection with self-supporting dimensioning: Wherever the rock overburden
is to less or the rock contribution is disturbed by cavities the steel linings were
dimensioned self-supporting against internal pressure.

2 3
5 6 7 8

1 4

Figure 1: Maximum internal pressure over armored headrace length

The dimensioning of the steel shells generally is done using the guaranteed material yield
strength or whenever it becomes decisive maximal 90% of the tensile strength (see also [3]).
The exploitation is limited with 50-60% in this case. Whenever the steel liners were
dimensioned taking into account the rock contribution it additionally has to be proven that the
self-supporting pipe can cover the whole internal pressure. For this fictitious load case
(ultimate limit state) the material yield strength can be used.

In the Obervermuntwerk II hydro power project thermomechanical steel grades with yield
strengths of up to fy = 700 [N/mm²] are permitted for the steel liners.

Dimensioning against Maximum Internal Pressure

To dimension the steel linings the maximum internal pressure in the hydraulic system
including the pipe connection to the existing Obervermuntwerk was calculated by means of
1D CFD in the project planning. The whole waterhammer analysis was performed by Illwerke
taking into account the expected machine characteristic curves.

To calculate the rock contribution the modulus of deformation of undisturbed rock was fixed
with VF = 7000 [N/mm²]. The more a symmetric distribution of the modulus of deformation
was presumed. The rock contribution was limited with 39% of the vertical overburden. The
rock density is given with ρF = 2500 [kg/m³]. The average inclination of the ground surface
above the headrace is α = 34,8 [°].

(1)

(2)

(3)

The needed steel shell thickness to cover the internal pressure pi was calculated using formula
1-3. The meaning of the subscripts is as follows: S … steel, F … rock, E … modulus of
elasticity or deformation, m … Poisson´s ratio, ν Poisson-Number, u0 initial gap, uS radial
displacement, r pipe radius, s thickness of sheet metal.

Beside the maximum allowable strength of the sheet metal and the maximum amount of rock
contribution due to overburden the fictitious load case of the self-supporting pipe and the
crack bridging following [4] have to be proven.

Table 1: Calculated sheet metal thicknesses

pF,max pi pF pS spi sfictitious crack spi,new design
Station
[mWC] [mWC] [mWC] [mWC] [mm] [mm] bridging [mm]
1 523.43 304.8 304.8 - 12 - ok -
2 442.44 333.6 333.6 - 12 - ok -
3 360.5 360 360 - 12 - ok -
3a 360 360 0 0 10.3 14 2
4 313.69 381.6 309.1 72.5 12 10.9 14 2
5 268.27 393.6 267.9 125.7 24 11.2 14 2
6 313.69 484.8 313.4 171.4 28 13.8 16 2
7 299.64 489.6 297.1 192.5 28 11.8 14 4
8 263.12 494.4 - 494.4 22 10.3 16 22

Table 1 shows the calculated liner thicknesses along the armored headrace as drawn in Figure
1. Wherever the shells were dimensioned under consideration of the rock contribution the
maximum rock amount was defining the pipe thicknesses. With sound rock quality and the
given overburden the exploitation of the yield strength of steel liners is around 10-15% only.
Therefore the high strength of the intended liner material cannot be utilized to cover the
internal pressure.

From station 1 to 3 the steel liners only seal the hydraulic system. The condition of crack
bridging following [1] can easily be proven with respect to the minimum shell thickness due
to production technology. The strain of the liner material even stays below the allowable
value in case of sound rock. In case of disturbed rock the yield strength is slightly exceeded.
But due to the high ductility of the foreseen material (S355) the crack bridging behavior is
nevertheless guaranteed.

A new approach to dimension steel liners was published by Greiner [5]. It was originally
introduced by Innerhofer [6] and gives much thinner sheet metals as shown in Table 1 in the
very right column. The main difference between this new approach and the dimensioning
following Seeber [2] is that Innerhofer considers the stress distribution around the rock
excavation as a drilled disk and then calculates the maximum allowable rock contribution
balancing the rock stress with the mountain water pressure and the amount of internal
pressure which is transferred to the rock. If a crack forms, there is an additional condition to
describe the maximum allowable crack width with respect to the ductile behaviour of the used
steels.

Dimensioning against External Pressure

For the design of armored penstock against outer pressure a couple of different formula is
known since the 1960´s. Due to the simple application the formula of Montel [7] is widely
spread and was used in many cases even for steel grades widely exceeding the validity range
given by Montel himself. Indeed some study to the validity range of the formula of Montel
and Amstutz [8] are known since the 1980´s. But a comprehensive analysis with respect to
steel grades with yield strengths of fy = 700 [N/mm²] and above as they are commonly used
today for steel liners in water power plants was carried out not before 2005 [9].

Figure 2: Calculation methods for dimensioning against external pressure [9]

R/t = 100, u/t = 0.3, j/R = 0.0002
In the turn of this analysis the results of different formula to dimension steel liners under
external pressure load were examined. Calculations were performed for different slenderness
ratios, roundness deflections and initial gaps between steel shell and surrounding concrete.
The more steel grade up to yield strength of fy ~ 900 [N/mm²] were enquired.

(4)

(5)

(6)

As a result of this study, it was seen that the formula of Montel pretends significantly higher
stability against external pressure than the formula of Amstutz [8] or Jacobsen [10] (see
Figure 2). As the calculated sheet metal thickness using the formula of Montel leads to a
severe overestimation of the real pipe stability especially with yield strength of fy > 400
[N/mm²] it must not be used for dimensioning of the steel liners of the Obervermuntwerk II.
Therefore the formula 4-6 of Amstutz [8] are used for dimensioning of the steel pipes against
outer pressure in the Obervermuntwerk II project. The safety factor was defined with γ = 1.5
and the plastic exploitation of the material must not be taken into account (µ=1) in formula 6.

Table 2: External pressure

pa spa,γ=1.5 spa,crit. spi
Station
[mWC] [mm] [mm] [mm]
1 381.6 - - 12
2 316.8 - - 12
3 252 - - 12
3a 252 35.1 28.1 0
4 213.6 32 25.7 12
5 168 28.1 22.6 24
6 206.4 31.4 25.2 28
7 192 25.5 20.5 28
8 163.2 20.3 16.3 22

The necessary calculated thicknesses of steel liners to resist the external pressure are given in
Table 2 again for the 8 highlighted stations drawn in Figure 1. As one can see they are
considerably higher than the thicknesses calculated due to internal pressure and thus the outer
pressure becomes decisive along the armored headrace.

Fatigue Load Spectrum Calculation

In order to generate a fatigue load spectrum for the Obervermuntwerk II penstock a realistic
history of power demands for the year 2012 of the Kops II hydro power scheme which is
presumed to be operated quite comparably has been applied to the new Obervermuntwerk II
scheme.

The calculation system, which has been used in conjunction with the 1D CFD code “Drust”
developed by VIW during the last 30 years is shown in Figure 3.
Acquisition of Input Data

Figure 3: 1D Calculation system used for the underlying long-term simulation.

The input data is comprised of two power demand curves for two ternary units of Kops II
with a resolution of one second. In order to adapt the power demand to the ternary units of
OVW II with a nominal pump power of 160 [MW] each and a maximum turbine power of
180 [MW] each, the positive half of demand values has been scaled by a factor of 110% in
order to achieve a curve which exceeds the Obervermuntwerk II maximal power in 1% of all
instance of time. The 95% percent values -152MW and 171MW are equally exceeded by
6.5% for the negative pump case and by 3.0% for the positive turbine case by the signal for
both units.

Decomposition of Power Demands

The resulting signal has been capped by -160MW and +180MW and decomposed to two
power demands for the pump and the turbine. The first step was to calculate a pump signal,
based on the rule that the pump is started whenever the power demand drops below 10% of
the nominal power -160MW of the pump, which resulted in 7130 annual pump starts for unit
1 and 6516 annual pump starts for unit 2.

The power consumption of the pump is calculated by means of the characteristics shown in
Figure 4 based on the actual storage level in the upstream Silvretta storage and the
downstream Vermunt storage. The power consumption of the torque converter involved
during the first 30 seconds after the pump start has been calculated from the estimated curves
shown in Figure 5.
 Figure 4: Pump power characteristics in dependency of the head

The final step was the transformation of the power difference between the original power
demand and the pump power into an opening angle for the guide vanes of the Francis unit
using the characteristics shown in Figure 6. For the numerical transformation the curves have
been approximated by Bézier Splines and a linear interpolation has been applied between two
of the given heads.

Figure 5: Estimated pump start power for different heads

Decomposition Result
A typical result of the decomposition process is shown in Figure 7, which depicts two pump
starts of unit 1 during the seconds 90,000 – 91,000 of the overall 31.5 Million seconds of the
simulation, which covered one year of operation.
Figure 7 shows a typical hydraulic short circuit situation of the ternary Obervermuntwerk II
units, where the scheme switched to pure turbine mode around t = 90,310 [s]. At t = 90,440
[s] the scheme switches back to hydraulic short circuit mode. Around t = 90,750 [s] the
required power consumption does not trigger the 10% criteria mentioned above so the
negative power demand of about -10 [MW] cannot be satisfied being outlined by a negative
deviation power.

Figure 6: Francis turbine power characteristics for several heads.

Figure 7: Decomposition result for two pump starts.

Resulting Fatigue Load Spectrum

The pump and turbine control signals generated by the outlined decomposition process has
been used as input files for the calculation system, where all ordinary out has been turned off
and replaced by a fatigue counting output system, which collected the Rainflow and transition
matrices as well as the Rainflow residuum of the inner pressure in the base of the penstock.
The width of the pressure classes involved in the counting process was 5 [mWC] and the
algorithm used a total of 100 pressure classes.

Figure 8: Fatigue Load Spectrum at the base of the OVW II penstock.

For the evaluation shown in Figure 8, the Rainflow Matrix has been evaluated for double
amplitudes, which have been plotted over the cumulative frequency of load cycles, which
have been scaled up to the nominal lifetime of 100 years.

Fatigue Load for Manifold Pipe

Based on the fatigue load spectrum shown in Figure 8 an equivalent double amplitude of 2 x
∆h = 116.8 [mWC] with a number of neq = 2 x 106 load cycles (m=3) was calculated for the
high head manifold taking into account a safety factor for the number of loadcycles of γloadcycle
= 2.

With a nominal pipe diameter of the manifold of DN = 3800 [mm] and an actually
predesigned shell thickness of s = 28 [mm] the stress variation range is given with 2 x ∆σu =
77.9 [N/mm²] under the assumption of a non-supported pipe. Taking into account the full
calculated rock mass contribution of around 60% in this area the stress variation range of the
manifold pipes will reduce to 2 x ∆σu,armoring = 30.6 [N/mm²].

Compared to the FAT class of 85 for grouting openings as depicted in [11] or the FAT class
of 80-112 for length welds of pipes as given in [12] the awaited fatigue load for the
Obervermuntwerk II headrace will be of minor importance for the design of the steel linings
at least from the todays point of view.

Conclusion
For the dimensioning of the steel liners of Obervermuntwerk II hydro power plant the outer
pressure becomes decisive along almost the whole armored track length.
Although high strength thermomechanical steel with a yield strength of fy = 700 [N/mm²] will
be used most probably for the liners the effective exploitation of the material strength will be
limited to around 10-15% in case of sound rock.

The fatigue load spectrum was calculated for a complete year of operation and then
extrapolated to a service life of 100 years. As it is planned to operate the new
Obervermuntwerk II similar to the Kops II hydro power plant, the transmission of the Kops II
power demands to the machine sets of the Obervermuntwerk II gives a realistic operation
scenario.

The Evaluation of the fatigue load spectrum for the high head manifold has shown that due to
the high shell thickness which comes from the dimensioning against external pressure load
the fatigue seems not to become decisive at any station of the armored waterway.

Acknowledgements
This paper is dedicated to Mr. Reinhard Mader, our mentor and mastermind behind the CFD-
code Drust and the original hydraulic design of OVW II, who left us too soon in February
2012.

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