Assessment of Materials Used in Penstock in Small Hydro Power by TOPSIS Method

Abstract

There are three kinds of energy resources: fossil fuels, renewable resources, and nuclear resources. An impulse or response turbine is used in a small hydropower (SHP) facility, which is mostly a "run-off-river" in nature. SHP technologies are being employed to generate power for rural electrification in both wealthy and undeveloped nations, and they have minimal maintenance costs and assist to slow down climatic change (but high capital costs). Research When compared to fossil and nuclear fuels, hydropower constitutes a considerable source of electrical energy today. Hydro resources are also widely available. In many countries, small, mini, and micro-hydro plants are crucial for rural electrification and have the fastest turnaround time for any renewable energy source. This allows them to quickly replace fossil fuels. Selecting the right materi-al plays a crucial part in product design to satisfy all functional criteria. Design is the formulation of data or information, both quantitative and qualitative, where there is always some element of risk and uncertainty. A probabilistic or utilitarian strategy is best adapted to deal with risk and uncertainty. MCDM approach in this study, TOPSIS is utilized to choose the components of the tiny hydropower penstock. The analysis took into account four alternative materials, including polyvinyl chloride (PVC), high-density polyethene (HDPE), glass-reinforced polymer (GRP), and mild steel (MS), as well as five as-sessment attributes/criteria, including yield strength, life, thickness, material cost, and maintenance cost. polyvinyl chloride (PVC) ranked two, high-density polyethene (HDPE) has rank one, glass-reinforced polymer (GRP) has rank four and mild steel (MS) is having rank three. According to the findings of this investigation, the best materials for penstock in small hy-dropower are high-density polyethene (HDPE), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), followed by mild steel (MS), and glass-reinforced polymer (GRP).