OF THE WATER

DESCRIPTION

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is related to a novel mechanism of generating power based on laws of mechanics. Particularly the present invention converts the water head difference into a usable mechanical power. The main focus of this invention is used for reciprocating mechanism in order to obtain the water energy.

TECHNICAL PROBLEM

Renewable sources of energy are the most competent candidates to be replaced as the energy resources for future life on earth. As aforementioned above, there have been some efforts to find efficient ways for extracting energy in solar radiations and wind currents. However, the electricity generated from these resources is still quite expensive. Because, the approaches applied in solar cells and wind turbines are not satisfactorily efficient and also equipment used in these types of power plants are highly intricate and expensive. Using biomass is the other source of energy is utilized to generate power, but the source of this energy is not as widespread as wind or solar energy.

One of the other energy resources that could be a significant energy resource is mechanical energy in water currents of earth surface (especially in the sub-regions close to the seas). Human beings have used river's energy by manufacturing enormous dams all around the world and have damaged environment strongly. By utilizing the water energy as it is flowing down in rivers there is no need to establish dams and store water behind it. This will eliminate lots of environmental effects and expenses that dams have and lots of other problems which dams are facing with. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Renewable sources of energy are the most competent candidates to be replaced as the energy resources for future life on earth. As aforementioned above, there have been some efforts to find efficient ways for extracting energy in solar radiations and wind currents. However, the electricity generated from these resources is still quite expensive. Because, the approaches applied in solar cells and wind turbines are not satisfactorily efficient and also equipment used in these types of power plants are highly intricate and expensive. Using biomass is the other source of energy is utilized to generate power, but the source of this energy is not as widespread as wind or solar energy.

One of the other energy resources that could be a significant energy resource is mechanical energy in water currents of earth surface (especially in the sub-regions close to the seas). Human beings have used the river's energy by manufacturing enormous dams all around the world and have damaged the environment strongly. By utilizing the energy of water as it is flowing down in rivers there is no need to establish dams and store water behind it. This will eliminate lots of environmental effects and expenses that dams have and lots of other problems which dams facing with.

SUMMARY OF INVENTION

The present invention is a mechanical hydropower generating system. The recent mechanism is capable to obtain rivers kinetic energy without manufacturing dam. The invention includes a two interconnected channels (like cylinders) and a moving plate (like a thin piston) which is moving downward inside the first channel due to water pressure on the plate and generates power. Fluid is being led to push the moving plate downward in the channel and cross a check valve and enter to the second channel. The second channel is used to discharge the water from the system. In the next step the discharge valve that is located between the closed cylinders and a designed mechanism makes the thin plate permeable (or totally open) and simply facilitates the piston's return to the initial position.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Fig.1 Secondary channel for conducting the water

Fig.2 Schematic displaying of the system in the top dead center Fig.3 Schematic displaying of the system in downward movement

Fig.4 Schematic displaying of the system in the bottom dead center

Fig.5 Opening of the moving plate in the bottom dead center

Fig.6 Schematic displaying of the moving plate in the open state

Fig.7 Displays Installation of the several systems in the series form.

Fig. 8 Top view of the several systems in the edge of the river

Fig.9 Schematic displaying of the system when the moving plate trajectory is in the knee form.

Fig.10 Initial condition of that the check valve is in a shutter form and it is open when the moving plate is in top dead center.

Fig.11 Motion of the moving plate causes the shutter form valve to be closed.

Fig.12 Schematic displaying of the system when the well is oblique

Fig.13 Schematic displaying of the system when the well is horizontal

Fig. 14 Schematic displaying of the moving plate when it's semi-open

Fig. 15 Schematic displaying of the moving plate when it's going to be closed

Fig. 16 Schematic displaying of the variant design of moving plate when it's semi-open

Fig.17 Opening mechanism of the moving plate when it's in shutter form

Fig.18 Power transmission mechanism when two parallel works with each other.

Fig.19 Power transmission system with combination of the cable, belt, and pulleys in two parallel systems.

Fig.20 Schematic displaying of a design with two series moving plate inside one well.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS:

The recent invention is a power generation system which utilizes kinetic energy of the rivers, waterfalls and ground water. The nature of this invention helps its equipment and accessories be able to set up everywhere in the waterway. In this invention a specific amount of water extracts from main flow path (1) into a secondary path (2) (which is like an open channel) as shown in Fig. l. This secondary path (2) has been fabricated by a minimum change in the river' s environment. The inlet of the secondary channel (2.a) also has been shown in Fig.1.

The slope of the secondary channel (2) is much less than the main flow path (1) so a head difference is created between the river and the secondary channel. Two wells (4) and (6) with different heights are stationed at the end of the secondary channel (2.b). A moving plate (3) embedded inside the first well (4). The moving plate has two distinct state, closed state (3) and open state (3.c). When the moving plate is in its top dead center it changes to its closed state so that the water pressure (due to the head difference between upstream and downstream of the system) pushes it downward and creates power. In This stroke the check valve (5) is totally open and water could be discharged from the system without any resistance. The power of the system could be obtained by jointing a rod (7) to the moving plate (3). In order to utilizing the entire energy of the water, the weight of the collection of moving plate (3) and its power transmission system (7) could be design as well that it be identical to the weight of the equal volume of water, in that case the weight and buoyancy forces would be equal and no power loss will be occur because of the weight of equipment. The different positions of the moving plate in the close state (downward stroke) have been shown in Fig.3 and Fig.4 by (3.a) and (3.b). Also the different positions of the power transmitting rod in the downward stroke have been shown in Fig.3 and Fig.4 by (7.a) and (7.b).

As it has been shown in Fig.4 and Fig.5 when the moving plate (3) reaches its bottom dead center the check valve closes (5.a) and the moving plate changes to its penetrable state (3.c) so that the moving plate could simply transmit to its top dead center with a little opposing force on it. It should be mentioned that both check valve (5) and moving plate (3) open approximately in the pressure equilibrium therefore opening and closing process don't consume a significant amount of energy. When the moving plate reaches to its top dead center, the second cycle starts similar to the last one. The exhaust water from the second well (6) enters to the inlet of the secondary channel (2.c) for the next step of power generating system. A different position of the moving plate in the open state (upward stroke) has been shown in Fig.6 by (3.d). Also a different position of the power transmitting rod in the upward stroke has been shown in Fig.6 by (7.c). To attain the total energy of the river combined series systems could be developed from river upstream till it's downstream as shown in Fig.7. Top view of the series mechanism including the river and the direction of the water flow inside the river has been displayed in Fig.8. The section A- A depicted in Fig.8 shows an equilibrium water level between river and the secondary channel. This connection makes aquatic being able to go back to the river and accordingly the environmental damages decreases remarkably. The outlet of the secondary channel in the next steps is shown in Fig.7 by (2.d) and also the inlet of the third step is shown in Fig.7 by (2.e).

Different designs for wells and moving plates

The first well (4) and the second well (6) could be design in different geometries, as shown in Fig.9 the well (4) could be design as a single knee (4.a) and also the second well (6) could be omitted from the system. In the recent design the manufacturing costs decreases but the power transmission system become more complex than before.

Fig.10 displays another alternative design which the well (4.b) is totally vertical and the check valve (5) has been replaced by a shutter form valve (9). The shutter form valve (9) closes along with the moving plate (3.e) moving downward (as shown in Fig.11). When the moving plate (3.f) reaches to its bottom dead center the shutter valve completely closes (9.a) and the moving plate could be opened and go through its backward stroke. Once the moving plate reaches to its top dead center the shutter valve opens by an external mechanism and the cycle completes.

Fig.12 and Fig.13 display how the mechanism could be designed in a way that the wells are diagonal (4.c) or horizontal (4.d), therefore the strokes would be diagonal or horizontal respectively.

Different mechanism in order to open and close the valves

As shown in Fig.14 rotation of the moving plate (3.c) around its central axis which is jointed to ring (11) make the moving plate capable to change to its close and open states. The opening and closing mechanism could be done by a moving actuator (10) as shown in Fig.14. The check valve (5) also could be opened by a hydraulic, pneumatic, mechanical or electrical mechanism as well as using the water flow itself. Different types of the valves have been shown in Fig.16 and Fig.17 by (3.d), (3.e), (3.f) and (3.g).

Materials for manufacturing equipment and subsystems

In manufacturing channels (including wells (4) and (6) and also Secondary channel (2)) different materials such as various metals, polymers, plastics, ceramics as well as concrete or other nonmetal materials could be used. To construct the secondary channel maybe no structure is needed to be construct and the river bed itself (with a little flattening) might be used as the secondary channel. The moving plate also could be built using metals, polymer, plastic or other nonmetal materials.

The power transmission system could be manufactured using rigid bodies like slider and crank mechanisms, rod, crank shaft flywheel or it could be designed and manufactured using flexible equipment like cable, wire ropes and belt.

The cross section of the wells (4),(4.a),(4.b),(4.c) and (6) and moving plate (3) and check valve (5) could be circular, noncircular or polygonal.

Different power transmission systems

To change the reciprocating motion into a rotational motion the classical crank shaft mechanism could be utilized (as internal combustion motors). Here we focus on the mechanism which transmits the power using with the combination of the wire ropes (12) and pulleys (13) (See Fig.18 and Fig.19).

As shown in Fig.19, two parallel systems are used to pivot the generator's shaft (15.a). This mechanism uses two pulleys (13.a) and (13.b) which are able to transmit the power only in one direction by two cables (12.a) and (12.b) (when the moving plate goes downward and creates power) and they are freewheeling and the backward stroke and also some coupling belts (14.a) and (14.b) used to simplify the power transmission mechanism. This mechanism works as a way that the two moving plates has a half round phase difference, meaning that when one of them goes upward, the other comes backward so consequently that continuity of the energy production maintained. In this design an external actuator is needed to return the moving plates from their bottom dead center to top dead center. This invention has the capability to utilize the moving plates in the series form inside a single well (16) as shown in Fig.20. The first moving plate (17) located in upstream of the second moving plate (18). These two plates has a half round phase difference too. As a result when the first moving plate generates power the second one is open and returning to its top dead center and vise versa.

In the recent design the two parallel wells are summarized in a single well (16) for an equal generated power so the power transmission systems simplified and the manufacturing costs decreases significantly. The water flow continuity maintains in the recent design too.

PROS AND CONS

Due to the increasing demand for energy and shortage of fossil fuel resources, there has been a concern for energy resources in the past decades. One of the energy resources is the flow of water in river and other natural water currents. The system proposed in this work has eliminated the problems with hydrodynamic power plants; such as, environmental issues, ecosystems degradation, and the heavy costs of constructing and maintaining these enterprises .

The aforementioned system makes us of very simple establishments which will not release any pollution into the surrounding ecosystem. The overall cost of equipment is much less than expensive turbines. At the same time, the maintenance cost is reduced up to 95%. This system requires very limited space and can be used in almost all conditions. Dams with the huge structures have been omitted in our design trying to minimize environment destruction. No water storage utilized in this method and the fluid currency remains steady during the process of energy generation. The invention could be manipulated for the rivers with the fewer slopes where construction of a dam is not possible. According to the simulations done for this mechanism using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods, the efficiency of this mechanism is more than water turbines and also the whole amount of fluid energy from the source till the ocean could be obtained using this mechanism. The needing time for construction and launching of the system is much less compared to the dams. All these points combined, this system will be a very good response to the increasing energy demand. The great advantage of the recent innovation comparing with the other hydropower generation systems is the utilizing of the entire head of the water. In other word there are only frictional head losses in this system but in the other similar systems there is at least another head loss due to the height of the power generator itself

It might be thought that the system is slow when the piston is coming backward because of its low water head in the upstream (2.b). But this could be solved by increasing the water height inside the upstream side of the well (2.b) without any changing in the basis of the mechanism and also this improvement prevent the creation of the turbulence effects in the exhaust of the pools. This improvement causes the system works in a more stable state.

In huge dams the evaporation of the water from dam's lake is significant percent but in the presented invention this problem has been solved. Also in dams some useful solutes sediment in the upstream sides which cause a great damage to environment.

In overall the advantages of the recent invention are:

Using the maximum energy of the water. Only the frictional losses are effective in this design and according to the constructed semi-industrial replica the efficiency of the invention is competitive with turbines.

1. Lower manufacturing and maintenance costs.

2. Capability of obtaining the total energy of the river (from source till oceans)

3. Lower environmental damages for both aquatic and plants and etc.

4. The total produced power could be adjustable with involving more systems in the production orbit (due to the need of the society).

5. Obtaining the energy of waterfalls and underground sources.

6. Lower manufacturing and operational time needed.

According to the mentioned parameters this invention has the ability to supply a part of increasing energy need in countries.