PRESENTATION 1

Academic Year 2020-21

Department of Civil and Infrastructure Engineering

Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur

Rajasthan
 FAILURE ANALYSIS OF
HYDROELECTRIC POWER PLANT

Submitted To : Submitted By :

Dr. Dushyant Sharma Deepak Manihar

Assistant Professor M20CI002
Department of Electrical Engineering M. tech-Civil and Infrastructure
IIT Jodhpur Engineering in Energy
IIT Jodhpur
 HYDROPOWER
 Hydropower is power derived from the energy of falling or
fast-running water.

 In the late19th century, Hydropower became a source of

generating electricity and before this use for operation of
mechanical device in industries.
 CAUSE OF FAILURE
1) Weather Event : Thunderstorms ,ice formation and
hurricane or tornado etc.
2) Equipment Operation : Technical faults in power plant
due to mechanical and electrical operation.
3) Faulty Network Operation: Power plants in poor
condition and inadequate maintenance.
4) Temperature : Very high or extremely low

Contd...
 CAUSE OF FAILURE

5) Force Majeure : Earthquake and Fire.

6) Human Violence : protest against the government
7) Short Circuit
 CAUSE OF FAILURE
Based on the work of Marika Behnert and Thomas Bruckner, they studied and described the
possible causes and effects of power plant failure after research on approximately 250 system
failures between 1965 and 2012, and compiled the following diagram.

Short Circuit
Human Violence 5%
5%
Force Majeure
9%
Weather Event
Temperature 31%
9%

Faulty Network Operation Equipment

13% Operation : 28%
 FLOOD INCIDENT
Due to heavy rain or thunderstorms, sometime flood may occur and
Create problem for power plant like:-

• The flood may make the plant inoperable with the submergence of
outdoor switchyard equipment and control boards in powerhouse.

• It may cause the water inlet and tail water outlet to close, and
accumulation of debris, mud and boulders

• landslide directly damages the waterways, outdoor switchyard and

other plant facilities on a ground. It also blocks the main stream of river
and makes a natural dam, which may cause an excessive water-rise and
may submerge the plant.
Case: In July 2011, Flood discharge attacked on J Power’s hydropower
plant (the biggest hydropower centre ) in Japan. Many HPPs were
inoperable due to plant submergence ,powerhouse damage and
accumulation of debris at intake and tailrace.

To prevent powerhouse from such flood incident, following measure

will adopt:
• Closure of all openings of power house
• Preparation of ample drainage Equipment
• Ensure the back-up power
• Periodical clean-up of drain
• Ensure the Safety of staff
 FIRE INCIDENT
Fire is the most critical incident both in lives and property damage and
following cause may be happened:

•Those cables may have many cracks, scratches, rubbing and dust
accumulation at the sheath and insulation layer, and the insulating
property may be seriously degraded under the wet condition and this lead
to short circuit.

• Fire may occur in oil-filled equipment due to faulty connection or

overheating.
Case: On 20 August 2020, a major fire broke out in late night hours, in
an underground hydroelectric power plant in Srisailam in the state
of Telangana. The fire blaze killed 9 people, including 5 engineers and
15 employees who were inside the power plant escaped since the fire
broke out. It was suspected that the fire broke out due to a short circuit.

To prevent powerhouse from such fire incident, following measure

will adopt:
• Periodical check Replacement of degraded cable and Removal of
unused cables.

• Preparation of fire extinguishers and set fire alarm for confirmation of

safety procedure.

• Close the cable penetration of wall with anti-fire materials ensure the
escape routes.
FIG 1: Fire Occur at Srisailam Hydroelectric Plant
( Source:- Indiatoday Newspaper)
 TURBINE TROUBLE

Following troubles cause to failure of turbine:-

• Adjustable blade runner of Kaplan, Bulb and Deriaz turbines may have
cracks at the runner blade near its stem.
• The Pelton runner has a weakness at the bucket base due to the
alternating impacts from water jets.
• Francis turbine has cracks at the trailing edge of runner blade near the
junction with crown and band due to high static and dynamic stresses.
• The silt erosion causes severe damage at the runner vanes, guide vanes
and their surrounding parts.
• The horizontal-shaft machine has the stress corrosion fatigue at the
main shaft .
•This vibration can also cause wear and fatigue failure of the runner
blades, guide vane ring, bearings, shafts, runner labyrinth seals and shaft
seals, and shear or loosening of various nuts and bolts in all affected
areas, as well as loosening of bolts.
•The formation of vapour bubbles in cavitation is not a major problem in
itself but the collapse of these bubbles generates pressure waves, which
can be of high frequencies , causing damage to machinery
Case: In June 2010, At a power plant of Rumania and Serbia. Many
cracks were found at the main shaft of runner side. The cause was the
Stress Corrosion Fatigue cracking.

To prevent powerhouse from Turbine trouble, following measure will

adopt:

• High quality control at manufacturing of parts and design by CFD and

FEM.

• Avoidance of stress concentration

• Periodical check of loosen bolts

 GENRATOR TROUBLE

Generator has many troubles in the stator, rotor, bearings, exciter etc.
The serious generator failures are the electric breakdowns of stator and
rotor windings as well as the mechanical breakdowns of bearings, stator
and rotor components etc.

CASE: In 1989, J Power’s PSP had an incident, in which a connector

connecting one of two parallel circuits of phase V to the neutral point
was broken down and remained circuit was overheated with the over-
current, subsequently high temperature damaged over various parts such
as the phase W windings of stator, rotor coils, thrust bearings and
generator housing.
To prevent powerhouse from Turbine trouble, following measure will
adopt:

• Proper design of coil Periodical check of looseness.

• Provision of thermal protection.
• Prevention of oil-mist Collecting carbon-dust Periodical clean-up.
• Periodical inspection Vibration monitoring.
 HYDROPOWER FAILURE IN INDIA
Plant Name Place Failure Cause Year
Srisailam Andhra Pradesh  Flood water deluge caused the complete 1998
Dam submergence of power house, massive debris
accumulation, electrical equipment
replacement and loss of power generation for
a year
Vishnuprayag Uttarakhand Flash Flood resulted in accumulation of huge 2013
Hydro electric quantity of muck and debris in the dam
station reservoir
Dhauliganga Uttarakhand Unprecedented flash floods in June, 2013 in 2013
hydro electric the State of Uttarakhand causing the complete
station submergence of power house. Massive debris
accumulation, electrical equipment
replacement and loss of total generation
capacity for more than six months.
Uri-II Power Jammu and A large fire incident happened in one of the 2014
Station Kashmir transformers of the power station.
 REFERENCES
1) Yasuda, M and Watanabe, S., 2016, “How to Avoid Severe Incidents at
Pumped Storage Power Plants,” 28th IAHR.

2) IEEJ, Technical Report No.1144, 2009, “Study on equipment troubles

of hydroelectric power plants,”

3) Alberto Luna-Ramírez , Alfonso Campos-Amezcua, Oscar Dorantes-

Gómez, Zdzislaw Mazur-Czerwiec, Rodolfo Muñoz-Quezada , 2015,
“Failure analysis of runner blades in a Francis hydraulic turbine — Case
study”.