Penstocks, gates and manifolds for hydroelectric power plants

ANDRITZ Hydro offers design, fabrication, site fabrication, and installation of:

• Penstocks
• Gates
• Steel tunnel linings
• Bi- and trifurcators
• Manifold systems
• Pipe bridges

More than 450 hydro power plants worldwide have been equipped with penstocks and gates delivered by ANDRITZ Hydro and all are working to full customer satisfaction. ANDRITZ Hydro is one of the market leaders with its technology for penstock fabrication on site.

ANDRITZ Hydro is designing, manufacturing, and installing pressure conduits (penstocks, pipe bridges, or steel tunnel linings), bi- and trifurcations as well as complete manifold systems.

Besides the hydraulic optimization of water conduits, the choice of suitable materials (along with the most economic process technology) is a major concern in penstock construction.

The main criteria for bifurcators is to achieve optimum flow behavior. Model tests are performed in ANDRITZ Hydro research labs as well as in cooperation with university institutes to determine the optimum hydraulic shape, i.e. the one showing the least head losses.

With the size of today’s projects, it is necessary to reduce costs in combination with the maximum use of local resources, which requires more and more on-site manufacturing. ANDRITZ Hydro started to fabricate penstocks directly on-site some 30 years ago. A temporary field workshop is set up to house all the necessary machinery for production and testing limiting deliveries to the site to unmachined and flat plates only.

The verification of computational methods is very important for state-of-the-art designs. The calculated stresses in complex geometrical structures such as bifurcators are checked routinely by strain gauge measurements on the model prototype .. The data measured is used to improve the stress analysis programs. In a series of theoretical studies and model tests to verify the theory of critical buckling pressure of ring-stiffened pipes ANDRITZ Hydro has achieved significant economical and safety improvements to the components.

ANDRITZ Hydro is supplying any type of high-pressure gates, such as fixed wheel gates, sliding gates, radial gates, and caterpillar gates, as well as gates for ship locks, such as miter gates or sector gates.

Dams for hydropower plants have to meet the most stringent safety requirements. ANDRITZ Hydro supplies any type of high-pressure gates, such as fixed wheel gates, sliding gates, radial gates, and caterpillar gates. These gates are used for power intakes, bottom outlets, or river diversion works.

For controlled flood discharge, ANDRITZ Hydro is supplying spillway gates, normally as radial or fixed wheel gates. For low head or run-of-river power plants, the product and service scope includes all types of hydro-mechanical equipment for weirs, power house inlets, and outlet structures.

ANDRITZ Hydro is also supplying trash racks, raking machines, and cranes, as well as stoplogs, lifting beams, and valves.

In line with today’s technology, the gates are operated by hydraulic hoisting systems, but mechanical rope or chain hoists can also be provided. For operation and control of the gates, ANDRITZ Hydro uses hardware from internationally renowned manufacturers, while the necessary software is developed by ANDRITZ Hydro engineers.

Research and hydraulic investigations are very important topics for the development of gates. Based on numerous model studies for high-head and low-head gates, new insights into hydro-mechanical behavior could be gained, enabling ANDRITZ Hydro to enhance the operational safety of these structures.