International Journal of Green Energy

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Design, Fabrication & Analysis of a Gravitational

Water Vortex Based Energy Harvester

Zulfikre Esa, Juliana Hj Zaini, Murtuza Mehdi, Asif Iqbal & Malik Muhammad
Nauman

To cite this article: Zulfikre Esa, Juliana Hj Zaini, Murtuza Mehdi, Asif Iqbal & Malik
Muhammad Nauman (2023) Design, Fabrication & Analysis of a Gravitational Water
Vortex Based Energy Harvester, International Journal of Green Energy, 20:1, 77-88, DOI:
10.1080/15435075.2021.2023880

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Published online: 20 Jan 2022.

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF GREEN ENERGY
2023, VOL. 20, NO. 1, 77–88
https://doi.org/10.1080/15435075.2021.2023880

Design, Fabrication & Analysis of a Gravitational Water Vortex Based Energy

Harvester
Zulfikre Esaa, Juliana Hj Zainia, Murtuza Mehdib, Asif Iqbala, and Malik Muhammad Naumana
a
Faculty of Integrated Technologies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei; bDepartment of Mechanical Engineering, NED
University of Engineering & Technology, Karachi, Pakistan

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Gravitational Water Vortex Power Plant (GWVPP) is one of the micro-scale hydropower system that is Received 16 February 2021
capable to convert rotational moving fluid to usable energy. It is preferred over other such systems Accepted 24 December 2021
because of its ultra-low operating heads and the system’s ability to work with low flow rate to generate KEYWORDS
electricity. The ease of setup, low maintenance, and operating cost make it suitable for portable energy Gravitational water vortex
source applications. The novelty of this study is the dome-shaped basin GWVPP system; the design was power plant (GWVPP);
inspired from the Brachistochrone curve theory. A Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis study was gravitational vortex
used to investigate the formation of vortex, and determine and optimize the curve radii parameter for hydropower (GVHP); micro
fabrication of the system basin. Two different dome basins were fabricated in this study; wide version and hydropower; energy
narrow version. A total of 30 experimental tests were made for the dome basin GWVPP system. The harvester; green energy
maximum efficiency of the system setup was recorded at 31.77%, obtained at the bottom of the dome-
basin using angled-curved blades profile from narrow dome basin with smallest outlet diameter. This
study shows that there is a possible alternative basin design for GWVPP system.

1. Introduction A basic GWVPP setup parameter includes inlet width (Winlet)

; tangential inlet width (Wt_inlet); basin diameter (Dbasin); basin
Green energies such as solar, wind, and hydropower energy are
outlet diameter (Doutlet); basin height (Hbasin); cone angle
examples of renewable energies which have seen the massive
(Coneangle); and length of tangential inlet (Lt_basin). Past
popularity, commercialization, and research interest in the last
research has presented two types of basins that available and
two decades. There are various techniques to harvest energy
commercially used for GWVPP system: (i) the cylindrical type
from these different renewable resources in an environmentally
basin (Wanchat and Suntivarakorn 2011), (Wanchat et al.
benign and hence sustainable way. For instance, solar cells are
2013) and (ii) the conical type basin (Dhakal et al. 2015b),
used to harvest solar energy, wind turbines are used to generate
(Dhakal et al. 2015).
and produce electricity from wind energy, and, traditionally,
Past researchers have contributed numerous number of
hydropower dams are built for harvesting energy from water to
works analyzing the formation, influencing factors, and
produce electricity on a large scale. There are a few considera­
study of the vortices through computer simulations and
tions to be taken before implementing renewable energy tech­
experimentations (Kueh et al. 2014),(Kraipech,
nologies on a large scale which includes resource availability,
Suksangpanomrung, and Nowakowski 2008),(Cui et al.
location, terrain, cost, and environmental impact and degrada­
2014),(Chen et al. 2012). Wanchat and Suntivarakorn
tion (Kaunda, Kimambo, and Nielsen 2012). Due to several
(Wanchat and Suntivarakorn 2011) applied computational
topographical and geographical factors, such as small area with
fluid dynamic (CFD) analysis in their preliminary design to
small population and high power grid construction cost (Esha
study the velocity performance at the inlet of the system to
2006), this has led to the delimitation of the implementation of
identify the best configuration. Nishi and Inagaki (Nishi and
large-scale hydropower. Micro-hydroelectric power plants can
Inagaki 2017) did a CFD analysis study to predict the flow
be served as a solution in portable energy source applications.
performance of the water turbine in GWVPP system. The
In this article, Gravitational Water Vortex Power plant
CFD analysis includes the comparison of free surface flow
(GWVPP) harvester is selected as the main research interest
and flow field at the center of the blade width. Chattha et al.
area. This system generates electricity from running water or
(Chattha et al. 2017) used CFD analysis to investigate the
river flow; it is a kind of hydropower which can be operated at
geometries for vortex generation in GWVPP system by
low hydraulic head. In this power plant system, water flows
varying the Hbasin, Doutlet, Dbasin and inlet velocity para­
into the basin system from the inlet channel thereby creating
meters of the system. Dhakal et al. (Dhakal et al. 2015b)
water vortex as water flows into it before exiting to the outlet
used CFD analysis to compare the vortex velocity genera­
located at the bottom of the basin. The vortex energy can be
tion inside the conical and the cylindrical basins of the
extracted by installing a turbine at the center of the basin.
GWVPP.

CONTACT Malik Muhammad Nauman malik.nauman@ubd.edu.bn Faculty of Integrated Technologies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Bandar Seri Begawan
BE1410, Brunei
© 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
78 Z. ESA ET AL.
GWVPP system’s main configuration includes the system
inlet configuration and the system basin configuration.
Wanchat et al. (Wanchat and Suntivarakorn 2011; Wanchat
et al. 2013) studied multiple GWVPP system inlet-to-basin
configurations through simulations. Three different GWVPP
system setups were studied: (i) cylindrical tank configuration;
(ii) rectangular tank with tangential inlet; and (iii) cylindrical
basin with tangential inlet. Basin configuration is the best
suited setup for GWVPP system. The most suitable configura­
tion was found out to be the basin with inlet guide/tangential
inlet. The optimal outlet configuration of the GWVPP basin
was approximately 14–18% of the maximum basin diameter.
Dhakal et al. (Dhakal et al. 2015b) and Rahman et al. (2017) did
analysis studies and reported that the Wt_inlet had to be kept as
small as possible. The study suggested that the optimum inlet
configuration was 1:3 ratio of Wt_inlet to Winlet. Thapa and
Aakash (Thapa, Mishra, and Sarath 2017) suggested
a triangular inlet is the most efficient configuration for
GWVPP system as it produced a symmetrical vortex flow
pattern compared to curved inlet and rectangular inlet.
A comparison study of the two basin shapes had been well
documented by Sagar et al. (Dhakal et al. 2014); the study
investigated the effect of basin height (Hbasin) between the
two basin configurations and the cone angle (Coneangle) toward
vortex development. The results showed that conical basin
generates higher vortex velocity than cylindrical basin.
Velocity can be improved by reducing the Coneangle and
increase in the Hbasin. Apart from the basin shapes and inlet
configurations, the size of outlet diameter (Doutlet) has signifi­
cant roles in vortex air-core formation. Mulligan and Casserly
(Mulligan and Hull 2010) determined that by using the cylind­
rical basin, outlet diameter to basin diameter ratio (Doutlet
/Dbasin) was at 14% for low head and 18% for high head sites.
Sreerag et al. (Raveendran et al. 2016) studied the effect of
outlet diameter for a conical basin; it was suggested that the
optimized outlet parameters for the system are around 30% of
basin diameter size (0.3Dbasin).
Besides the CFD analysis, researchers have conducted
experimentation of the GWVPP system to validate the CFD
analysis results. These experimental analyses were carried out
to investigate the vortex generation, torque, and angular velo­
city produced by the GWVPP system. The experimental setup
typically consists of a water pump, the GWVPP basin setup,
and turbine runner. In addition, turbine generator (Wanchat
et al. 2013), rope brake dynamometer for measuring torque,
and revolution per minute (RPM) meter for measuring shaft
speed (Power, McNabola, and Coughlan 2015) were used to
analyze the output of the system. Wanchatt et al. (Wanchat
et al. 2013) developed a cylindrical basin experimental setup,
with the maximum efficiency achieved from the setup being
30% with 0.2 m outlet configuration and operating head of
0.3 m to 0.4 m. Sagar et al. (Dhakal et al. 2014) installed
a mechanical rope-brake dynamometer to measure the torque
of GWVPP system turbine blades and recorded peak efficiency
of 10.5–25.4%. In later studies, Sagar et al. (Dhakal et al. 2015b)
experimented on conical basin to compare the results with
cylindrical basin and found that conical basin has the max­
imum efficiency of 36.84%, with optimized position of the
runner at 65–75% of the total Hbasin. Kueh et al. (Kueh et al.
2014) used two different turbine blade shapes: flat and curved
blades for harvesting the vortex energy. The turbine with flat
blades provided maximum efficiency of 21.63% while that with
curved blades was recorded at 22.24%. Sitram et al. (Sritram,
Treedet, and Suntivarakorn 2015) in their experimental study
analyzed the effect of materials used in fabricating turbine for
GWVPP systems. The experiments showed that the materials
with less density and higher specific strength produced more
torque as it took less time to rotate to achieve maximum
velocity. Wichian and Suntivakorn (Wichian and
Suntivarakorn 2016) designed turbine blades with baffle plate
similar to Pelton turbine concept; the baffles covered 50% of
the curved blades and recorded the highest torque of 37.41 N.
m. Ullah et al. (Ullah et al. 2020) manufactured a telescopic
multi-stage turbine for GWVPP conical basin system. This
method was used to fully utilize vortex formation in the
basin. The multi-stage turbine was also found to be comple­
menting each other by increasing the vortex strength because
of their rigid body rotation.
The limited shapes and sizes for GWVPP system motivate
this study to proposed alternative design specific for GWVPP
system. The novelty of the presented study will focus on the
new dome-shaped basin for GWVPP system. The design of the
basin was inspired from the Brachistochrone curve – the fastest
descent path (Nishiyama 2013). This design aims to improve
the vortex velocity formation inside the basin and as an addi­
tional choice for GWVPP system basin configuration. The
study will provide thorough details and analysis of the fabri­
cated dome-basin-based GWVPP system through CFD analy­
sis and experimentation.
2. Methodology
2.1. Model development and analysis procedure
Within the context of this research study, the design para­
meters are mainly focused on the dome basin shapes and its
parameters. As mentioned above, the model design was
inspired by the Brachistochrone curve theory that derives
the fastest path between two elevated points, i.e. curved
path and straight line path (Nishiyama 2013). CFD analysis
has been done as a preliminary study for developing and
predicting the dome basin model and its performance. It
was used to determine the optimized configuration of the
parameters by understanding and examining the flow pattern
with the developed 3D model of GWVPP system. The opti­
mized parameters achieved from the CFD analysis were
selected for fabrication. The dome-basin configuration is
modeled with assumption that the air-core vortex is constant
and axisymmetric while the flow is incompressible in cylind­
rical coordinates (Dhakal et al. 2015b, Thapa, Mishra, and
Sarath 2017, Dhakal et al. 2014). The CAD drawing of the
dome-basin model and the parameters of interest are shown
in Figure 1. The selected parameters for designing the
GWVPP system in this paper were based on a combination
of previous researchers’ optimized parameter settings as pre­
sented in Table 1 (Mulligan and Hull 2010, Raveendran et al.
2016, Power, McNabola, and Coughlan 2015, Dhakal et al.
2014).
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF GREEN ENERGY 79

Figure 1. CAD drawing of the dome-basin model; (a) top-view and (b) side-view of the dome basin.

� 2 �
Table 1. Selected parameters for dome basin GWVPP system. @Vr @Vr Vθ2 @ρ @ Vr @Vr Vr @ 2 Vr
Config. Value Reference Vr þVz þ ¼v þ þ (3)
@r @z r ρ@r @r2 r@r r2 @z2
Winlet 0.30 m -
Wt_inlet 0.15 m Winlet /2 (Dhakal et al. (Dhakal et al. 2014)) � 2 �
Lt_inlet 1.35 m - @Vz @Vz @ρ @ Vz @Vz @ 2 Vr
Hinlet 0.15 m Hinlet = 1/3Hbasin (Christine et al. (Power, McNabola, Vr þVz þ ¼g þv þ þ (4)
and Coughlan 2015))
@r @z ρ@z @r2 r@r @z2
Dbasin 1.0 m -
Doutlet 0.20 m to 14% to 18% of Dbasin (Mulligan and Casserly (Mulligan
where Vθ , Vr , and Vz are the tangential, radial and axial
0.30 m and Hull 2010)) velocity, respectively; ρ is fluid density, g is acceleration due
30% (0.3Dbasin); (Raveendran et al. (Raveendran et al. to gravity, and v is kinematic viscosity of water.
2016))
The three-dimensional model of the GWVPP system was
modeled using commercially available software known as
Solidworks™. The Solidworks was imported into CFD analysis
The governing equation used in the CFD analysis software
software environment. CFD software was responsible for
was based on the continuity equation and Navier-stoke equa­
meshing and performs the model fluid simulation. The bound­
tion, which can be defined by Eq. 1 through Eq. 4 as derived by
ary conditions parameter is as shown in Figure 2.
Wang et al. (Wang, Jiang, and Liang 2010).
@Vr @Vz Vr 2.1.1. CFD model and mesh analysis of dome basin
þ þ ¼0 (1)
@r @z r The simulations were used to investigate the effect of the Rbasin
and the effect of Hbasin with optimized Rbasin on vortex velocity
� 2 �
@Vθ @Vθ Vr Vθ @ Vθ @Vθ Vθ @ 2 Vθ performance. These model designs were simulated via simula­
Vr þ Vz ¼v þ þ tion software with Reynolds-averaged Navier-stokes equation
@r @z r @r2 r@r r2 @z2
and K-epsilon turbulence model (RANS K-ε). RANS K-ε is
(2)
a model used to simulate the average flow turbulence condition
80 Z. ESA ET AL.

Figure 2. The boundary condition for dome-basin GWVPP system.

and it is best suited for flow away from the boundary layer or
wall. This turbulence model was also used by the previous
GWVPP researchers in their study (Dhakal et al. 2015b,
Raveendran et al. 2016, Dhakal et al. 2014). With the assump­
tion of steady-flow and no-slip wall condition, the working
fluids used in this CFD simulation were water and air. Water
covered all the domain with addition of air only at the open
free-surface. Water is assumed as an incompressible fluid with
the default of density and dynamic viscosity of 998.2 kg/m3 and
0.00089 Pa.s, respectively. The initial inlet velocity was set to be
0.1 m/s and the outlet pressure outlet at 101,325 Pa, and addi­
tional gravity at negative Z direction. Solver settings used for
simulating the model include number of iterations at maximum
4000, tolerance factor of 1, and residual factor was set to 1000.
The model was meshed with coarser mesh and gradually the
meshing quality increased, especially at the region of interest:
Figure 3. Optimized meshing for CFD domain of dome-basin.
(i) inlet (ii) tangential inlet, and (iii) outlet of the model. Free-
quadrilateral mesh was applied to the free-surface and the
basin wall. Whereas the region of interest was meshed using
combination of triangular mesh and tetrahedral mesh. help in the fabrication of the shape of the basin for
Boundary layer refiner was added because its adaptive features experimentation purposes. The CFD analysis was carried
allow for optimized contact between different types of sizes out in two different cases. First case is to analyze the effect
meshed and this also help to minimize the meshing errors. The of Rbasin to different outlet; in this study, Rbasin – 0.5 m,
meshing was increased from ~70,000 number of elements to 0.6 m, 0.7 m, and 0.8 m will be simulated with different
~300,000 elements. Degree of freedom (DOFs) value was outlet – 0.3 m, 0.25 m, and 0.2 m. Second case is the effect
recorded for each tested element size. of Basin height on velocity development of the dome-basin
The increment in number of elements enable more precise with optimized Rbasin, where basin height will be set to
and accurate CFD analysis solution; the element size was 0.3 m, 0.4 m, and 0.5 m.
reduced till almost constant results were produced from pre­
vious mesh element size. Figure 3 illustrates the meshed model
optimized for this research CFD simulation purposes. 2.2. Fabrication and experimental setup
The preliminary design of the dome basin was carried out
2.1.2. CFD parameters optimization analysis using CFD analysis. A series of cases were simulated by varying
The main objectives of this CFD analysis were to obtain the parameters that affect the vortex formation in the basin.
the velocity prediction from the designed dome-basin The best-found dome basin design was fabricated and tested
model and to determine the optimized parameter setting for this research. Two basins were fabricated for this research
of the dome-basin and the best position for installing the purpose, Wide-version dome basin and narrow-version dome
experimental turbine runner. This analysis will directly basin are shown in Figure 4.

Curvature of the dome basins was selected based on CFD
simulation analysis results. The dome basins were 3D printed
via fused deposition modeling (FDM) method to achieve the
accuracy of the curvature from the CFD analysis results. The
wide version dome has Dbasin of 0.65 m and Doutlet of 0.15 m;
ratio of 1.3:0.3. Whereas the narrow version dome basin has
Dbasin of 0.5 m and Doutlet of 0.1 m; ratio of 1:0.2. Both basins
have similar Hbasin of 0.25 m. In addition, experimental Doutlet
parameters of the basins can be adjusted by installing the outlet
socket hole at the outlet of the basin.
Figure 4. (a) Wide version dome basin; (b) narrow version dome basin.
Figure 5. (a) schematic diagram of the experimental setup; (b) the fabricated experimental setup.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF GREEN ENERGY 81
The dome-basin GWVPP system experimental setup was
configured in a closed-loop system to preclude the wastage of
water. The experimental setup, as shown in Figure 5, consists of
several components such as: (i) pump; (ii) ball valve; (iii) flow
meter; (iv) channel with tangential inlet; (v) dome basin; and
(vi) water tank.
Six runner configurations were tested with the dome basin
GWVPP experimental setup. A simple 4-blades runner was
used for this testing purpose. Similar test runner approach
was found used by past researcher as it is easier to fabricate
82 Z. ESA ET AL.

(Power, McNabola, and Coughlan 2015, Ullah et al. 2020). The runner rotates for a few seconds. RPM reading measurement
blades were made from 3-mm acrylic sheet, and the blades’ method was used to measure and calculate the angular velocity
mounting was made of 3D printed part. The configurations, (ω) of the shaft from Eq. 7. The power input and output of the
size, and blades’ profiles are shown in Table 2. The runner was experiments were measured with Eq. 6 and Eq. 7.
mounted vertically using a collar above of the basin. Runner Input power:
with drum mounting was used to harvest the vortex located at
Pin ¼ QρgH (6)
the middle of overall Hbasin, whereas the small mounting was
used to harvest vortex energy located near to the basin outlet. Output power:
The designated mountings responsible to hold the acrylic
blades for the turbine runner are shown in Figure 6. Pout ¼ τ�2πnrpm
In the experimental study, the torque measurement techni­
que was adopted from Bajracharya et al. (Bajracharya, Ghimire, Pout ¼ τ�ω (7)
and Timilsina 2018) i.e. using a rope brake dynamometer. It is where Q is the flow rate in m3/s, ρ is the density of water, g is
one of the methods to measure the torque produced by the the gravity, H is the water head, ω is the angular velocity, nrpm
rotating shaft and the runner. The fabricated rope-brake
is the speed measured revolutions/min (RPM).
dynamometer, as shown in Figure 7, consists of spring balance,
Efficiency of the system was calculated by Eq. 8.
shaft wheel, pulley, rope, and dead weight. A spring balance
was attached to a rope. The rope was wound around the wheel Pout
η¼ � 100% (8)
and a dead weight was applied to the end of the rope to prevent Pin
the wheel from slipping.
Ten measurement readings from the spring balance scale and
A total of 30 sets of experimental configurations were made
tachometer were taken and their average was recorded to
for the dome basin GWVPP system by considering that there
increase the accuracy of the output data.
were various modular parameters used in this research such as:
i) dome basin types; ii) outlet configurations; and iii) blade’s
configurations. Each fabricated runner configuration has to be
3. Results and discussion
tested on both basins. There were three outlet configurations
for wide version basin and two outlet configurations for nar­ 3.1. CFD mesh dependency analysis of dome basin
row version dome basin. Figure 8 illustrates the experimental GWVPP system
setup configuration procedure conducted in this research. For
The CFD was run with the boundary conditions stated pre­
each configuration, water was pumped into the system gradu­
viously in section 2.1.1, where meshing was refined from
ally from 60 L/min to 100 L/min. Torque measurements were
~70,000 number of elements to its final computational ele­
taken from the mechanical rope-brake dynamometer digital
ments of ~300,000 elements (Figure 9). The mesh configura­
weight scale. Reading from the digital weight scale was
tions have the DOFs approximately ~95,000 up to ~570,000.
recorded and calculated using Eq. 5.
The final meshed size had about ~0.20% difference in produced
results from previous mesh element size. DOFs of approxi­
τ ¼ r � F sin θ (5)
mately 480,000 (No. of elements: ~260,000) was chosen as
standard meshing setting for the rest of CFD analysis purposes.
where r is the radius of the wheel, 0.03 m, and F is the force
The final minimum and maximum element size for the free-
measured from the spring balance while θ is the angle between
triangular meshed boundaries was 1.5*10−4 m and 1.1*10−2 m,
the force (F) and the lever arm (blades of the turbine).
respectively, and free-quadrilateral meshed boundaries was set
For every variation in the flow rate, RPM of the testing
to minimum of 2.5*10−2 m and maximum of 6.5*10−2 m. The
runner was measured using digital tachometer. RPM readings
optimized mesh settings will be used for the case studies pre­
were taken as the vortex fully formed inside the basin and the
pared for the analysis.

Table 2. The experimental runner blades configuration for the experimental

setup. 3.2. CFD dome-basin system parameters optimization
Angle Attachment Blades cut Blade size (acrylic) Notation analysis results
90° Drum Rectangular L = 6 cm; H = 13 cm DR1
30° Drum Rectangular L = 6 cm; H = 13 cm DR2 To identify the dominants Rbasin settings for the basin, in this
90° Drum Curved Top L = 13.5 cm; DC1 simulation study, the Hbasin was set to 0.4 m. The Rbasin was
Bottom L = 10 cm;
H = 13 cm. simulated by varying its parameter from 0.5 m to 0.8 m, each
30° Drum Curved Top L = 13.5 cm; DC2 Rbasin was paired with three different Doutlet parameters. The
Bottom L = 10 cm; CFD model results in Figure 10 show the dominant Rbasin of
H = 13 cm.
90° Small Curved Top L = 16 cm; SC1 0.6 m and 0.7 m in terms of maximum velocity (solid lines)
mounting Bottom L = 6 cm; inside the basin. The maximum velocity in this CFD analysis
H = 12 cm. only shows the maximum achievable velocity of the system
30° Small Curved Top L = 16 cm; SC2
mounting Bottom L = 6 cm; parameter setting. Average velocity (dashed-line) inside the
H = 11 cm (after basin domain shows similar trends across all the Rbasin settings,
assembly) where it increases as the maximum velocity is decreased. The

Figure 6. Solidwork model of test runner for dome basin system. (a) DR1; (b) DR2; (c) DC1; (d) DC2; (e) SC1; and (f) SC2.
CFD results also show a decrease in average velocity as Doutlet
decreases. Yaakob et al. (Yaakob et al. 2014) reported similar
CFD analysis results of Doutlet effect in a cylindrical basin.
In this next case study, the previously dominant Rbasin was
selected to be carried forward with CFD analysis. This study
was done to study the effect of basin height (Hbasin) by varying
the height setting of previous height parameter. 0.3 m and
0.5 m Hbasin were paired with the dominant Rbasin. The simula­
tion results in Figure 11 show that the highest achievable
maximum velocity of 1.768 m/s was produced from the
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF GREEN ENERGY 83
configuration of 0.2 m Doutlet, 0.6 m Rbasin and 0.5 m Hbasin;
this configuration setting has the least average basin velocity
produced at ~1.038 m/s. Another dominant parameter setting
that can be seen from the results was the 0.3 m Doutlet, 0.6 m
Rbasin and 0.5 m Hbasin. It shows the second highest achievable
velocity inside the basin of 1.704 m/s, and also it has the highest
average velocity results of 1.422 m/s. From this CFD analysis
results, it is shown that the height and outlet parameter of the
system has a significant effect toward velocity production
inside the basin.
84 Z. ESA ET AL.

Figure 7. The assembly of rope-brake dynamometer for the experimental setup

torque measurements.

Figure 10. Effect of Rbasin with different Outlet parameter for dome-basin GWVPP
model.

Figure 8. The experimental setup configuration procedure for the dome basin
GWVPP system.

Figure 11. Effect of Basin height toward the dominant Rbasin parameter (outlet;
radius respectively).

Figure 9. The convergence graph of dome-basin model graph.

Figure 12. The velocity map inside the dome-basin model for GWVPP system.

Taking into account the best combination of the parameter,

Rbasin parameter selected for the experimentation was 0.6 m
profile. The highest velocity was typically located nearest to the
outlet of the system as shown in Figure 12, while the average
velocity of the system was found inside the dome itself. From
this CFD velocity mapping, it also shown that there is
possibility of vortex created at the central of basin and this
also helps for determining the position for runner installation.
The best position configurations of runner for experimental
testing were nearest to the outlet and at the mid-height of the
basin.

Figure 13. CFD comparison analysis of different basin shapes.
A comparison CFD simulation was made to compare the
existing cylindrical and conical design basin with our current
works, as shown in Figure 13. The simulations were set with
similar Hbasin – 0.5 m and multiple of Doutlet parameters. The
results show the dome basin to have good average velocity with
the smallest 0.2 m and 0.3 m Doutlet parameter compared to the
existing model, 0.9895 m/s and 1.3644 m/s, respectively. The
dome shape based on brachistochrone curve theory helps to
improve the velocity inside the basin by up to 3.01%.
3.3. Dome basin experimental analysis results
Two fabricated 3D printed basins were used in this experiment.
The narrow version has 0.5 m Dbasin, while the wide version has
0.65 m basin diameter. Both printed basins have implemented
the “0.6 m” Rbasin profile slope as determined most suitable by
CFD studies given in the previous section. Rbasin after size
reduction; approximately narrow basin Rbasin – 0.3 m and
wide basin Rbasin – 0.39 m. The fabricated wide version basin
has a larger volume compared to the narrow version.
A total of 12 experimental analyses were done with the
narrow dome basin. The narrow dome basin was tested with
six types of runner profiles. Two different Doutlet parameters,
0.05 m and 0.10 m, were designed for the narrow basin. The
Figure 14. The average angular velocity results taken from narrow dome basin experiments. (a) Mid-height vortex flow; (b) bottom vortex flow.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF GREEN ENERGY 85
Doutlet of 0.05 m and 0.10 m are denoted at the end of the
notations by alphabet “X” and “Y”, respectively, in the graph.
Four blades with cylinder drum attachments were used to
harvest the middle-height flow of the basin. While two blades
with smaller attachment were used to harvest vortex formation
near the outlet. Blades’ configuration abbreviations are as
shown in Table 4. The narrow dome basin experimental results
show that DR1 blade configuration produced the highest angu­
lar velocity of 112 rev/min for mid-height measurements
(Figure 14a). As for the bottom vortex flow, the highest RPM
reading was measured at 92 rev/min by SC1 blades configura­
tion with the smallest Doutlet basin (Figure 14b). Curved cut
blades in this experiment have slightly poor angular velocity
performance. This was due to the increase in overall weight of
the runner from the larger size acrylic blades.
Adopting similar procedure as previous for narrow basin
experiments, 18 experimental tests were carried out for the
wide dome basin. 3 Doutlet configurations were used in wide
dome basin experiments; 0.05 m, 0.10 m, and 0.15 m. Different
Doutlet are denoted by “X,” “Y”, and “Z”, respectively, in the
graph. The results show the highest average angular velocity
reading at the mid-height flow was produced by DR1 blades
configuration with Doutlet of 0.1 m. It was recorded at 87 rev/
min, as shown in Figure 15a. While the bottom vortex of the
wide dome basin recorded the highest angular velocity of 83
rev/min as shown in Figure 15b harvested using SC1 blades
configuration with 0.1 m Doutlet.
To investigate the torque produced from the dome basin
GWVPP system, flow-rate was gradually increased from 60 L/
min to 100 L/min. Torque reading was measured from the
rope-brake dynamometer system and by using Eq. 5.
Figure 16 shows the variation of torque produced w.r.t. velocity
from pre-selected experimental results that was conducted in
this research by both wide version basin and narrow version
basin. The increase in torque occurs as the Doutlet of the basin
decreases. This behavior was caused by the decrease in the
vortex diameter developed in the basin. Because of the fact
that the GWVPP dome basin system has low Hbasin, the vortex
formation was limited to 0.25 m. Khan et al. (Khan 2016)
reported that the strength of the vortex was decreasing as the
vortex height increases. With the limitation of Hbasin, these
experiments were unable to validate the effect of vortex height
in the dome basin configuration.
86 Z. ESA ET AL.
Figure 15. The average angular velocity produced from the wide dome basin. (a) Mid-height of vortex flow; (b) bottom vortex flow.
Figure 16. The torque vs velocity graph of selected experimental results. (a)
Narrow basin, DR1Y configuration; (b) narrow basin, DR2Y configuration; (c)
wide basin, DR1Z configuration; (d) wide basin, DR2Y configuration; (e) narrow
basin, SC2X configuration and (f) wide basin, DR1X configuration.
Figure 17 shows the selected maximum torque measured at
maximum pump flow rate. The highest torque recorded in the
experiments was produced by the SC2 blades configuration in
narrow basin with Doutlet of 0.05 m. The torque produced from
the configuration is 0.141 N.m and angular velocity of 87.98
rev/min. The lowest torque measured in the experiments was
0.0291 N.m at 85 rev/min. The results were measured from the
wide dome basin with Doutlet of 0.15 m using DR1 blades
configuration. From the experimental observations, the wide
version dome basin has a poor performance with a large Doutlet
configuration. This experimental Doutlet effect on the vortex
velocity corresponds to the case “C” of the CFD analysis find­
ings in this research. The highest angular velocity was recorded
from the narrow basin measured at 112 rev/min with torque
measured at 0.039 N.m. High angular velocities were achieved
from the lightweight runner configuration while higher torques
were achieved from the heavy runner configuration. Further
optimization of the blades is required to increase the efficiency
of the system and runner optimization specific for the dome
basin parameter.
Figure 17. The selected maximum torque measured at maximum pump flow rate
with configuration of (a) narrow basin, DR1Y; (b) wide basin, DR1Z; (c) narrow
basin, DC2Y; (d) wide basin, DR2Y; (e) narrow basin, DR2Y; (f) wide basin, DC1Y; (g)
wide b basin, SC2X; (h) narrow basin, DC1X; (i) narrow basin, SC2X; (j) wide basin,
DC2X.
The power (Pin) was calculated using Eq. 6. The Pin of the
experimental GWVPP dome basin setup at maximum flow rate
was 4.088 W. The power (Pout) of the experimental results was
calculated by Eq. 7. The highest output results of the dome
basin GWVPP system was produced from the narrow type
basin with Doutlet of 0.05 m. The highest output was found at
the lower bottom parts of basin, and harvested with SC2 blades
configuration. It produced 1.3 W of power from the setup
configuration, and maximum efficiency was 31.77%.
Wide version dome basin with Doutlet of 0.15 m recorded the
lowest power output from the overall experiments. Lowest Pout
recorded in the experiment was 0.259 W with DC1 blades
configuration. The configuration has the lowest efficiency of
6.33%. This result was due to the shorter blade wings in DR1
configuration, and the water vortex air-core produced was
widened as Doutlet of the basin increases [36]. DR1 and DR2
blades’ configuration in this research experiments can be argu­
ably not fully optimized for wide version dome basin.
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF GREEN ENERGY 87

Table 3. The complete list of power produced and efficiency w.r.t to the system harvest vortex energy, the highest efficiency from the overall
configuration of the dome basin experimental analysis.
dome-shaped basin GWVPP system setup recorded was
Basin type Doutlet (m) Blade type Power out Efficiency 31.77%. The optimized location for placing the runner was
Narrow 0.10 DR1 0.459 11.22
Narrow 0.05 DR1 0.655 16.02
nearer to the system outlet. This result corresponds to the
Narrow 0.10 DR2 0.957 23.41 earlier CFD analysis, where highest vortex velocity was found
Narrow 0.05 DR2 0.983 24.05 near to the outlet of the system. By using both optimized Doutlet
Wide 0.15 DR1 0.259 6.33
Wide 0.10 DR1 0.284 6.95
parameter and vertical turbine configuration, this dome basin
Wide 0.05 DR1 0.534 13.07 GWVPP system can be expected to perform better in larger
Wide 0.15 DR2 0.331 8.10 scale size system.
Wide 0.10 DR2 0.571 13.97
Wide 0.05 DR2 0.554 13.55
Narrow 0.10 DC1 0.800 19.48
Narrow 0.05 DC1 0.823 20.14 Disclosure statement
Narrow 0.10 DC2 0.295 7.21
Narrow 0.05 DC2 0.380 9.29 No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Narrow 0.10 SC1 1.040 25.45
Narrow 0.05 SC1 0.896 21.92
Narrow 0.10 SC2 0.821 20.08
Narrow 0.05 SC2 1.300 31.77 Funding
Wide 0.15 DC1 0.412 10.07
Wide 0.10 DC1 0.430 10.52 This work was supported by the Universiti Brunei Darussalam [UBD/
Wide 0.05 DC1 0.456 11.15 RSCH/URC/RG(b)/2020/018].
Wide 0.15 DC2 0.795 19.46
Wide 0.10 DC2 0.570 13.94
Wide 0.05 DC2 0.886 21.68 References
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