A government agency has solicited proposals for technology in the area of exergy
ID: 1841694 • Letter: A
Question
A government agency has solicited proposals for technology in the area of exergy harvesting. The aim is to develop small-scale devices to generate power for rugged duty applications with power requirements ranging from hundreds of milliwatts to several watts. The power must be developed from only ambient sources, such as thermal and chemical gradients, naturally occurring fuels (tree sap, plants, waste matter, etc.), wind, solar, sound and vibration and mechanical motion including human motion. Devise a system that would meet these requirements. Clearly identify its intended application and explain its operating principles. Estimate its size, weight, and expected power output. AbstractExplanation / Answer
According to me one the most efficient source of power generation is from water streams either natural or created artificial. So here we do require turbine, nozzles, pipes , pump ,gear system, generator and power grids. If free flow stream is available then we don't require the pump which will be used to pump the water from the tail race to the water tank in absence of free flow water source.so here we will use the Pelton turbine as it would more efficient and cheap than other turbines. Here the nozzle should be of convergence one. The gear mesh should be in between the turbine shaft and generator shaft so that with we can transmit high velocity to the generator shaft for higher power generation and then transmitted to the grid system for distribution. Pump will take some power from the generated electricity to transfer the water stored in the tail race of turbine to the reservoir for re use purpose. Calculations should be done accordingly depending on the requirement of the power.There will be some power loss due to different factors like friction, pipe loss ,bending loss ,heat loss etc. So depending on the natural or artificial one we have chose the components and there usefulness in this project.