Available student projects | 2025 - 2026

1. Design and development of thruster for the hydraulic turbine STORE2HYDRO

Reversible pump-turbine provides good flexibility of energy production and storage. When excess electricity is available, the pump-turbine works as a pump and pumps the water to upper reservoir that can be used during pick energy demand. Cavitation is one of the critical challenges for the pump-turbine. If we reduce cavitation, the turbine can work efficiently and will provide more energy flexibility. We are conducting research on this topic under the large research project financed by the European Commission, store2hydro. The selected students will work in this project along with other students in the Waterpower laboratory.

Tasks

  1. Design and optimization of the thruster that creates additional pressure and keep the turbine above vapour pressure value.
  2. Conduct numerical simulations using ANSYS
  3. Study cavitation performance of the turbine and implement this information into the thruster design

Requirement

  1. It is valuable to the project work, if student(s) is studied one of the following courses.
    1. Fluid Mechanic
    2. Computational Fluid Dynamics
    3. Turbomachinery
  2. After completing the project work, the student must be prepared to continue for master thesis work in Spring semester.
  3. The student must be prepared to spend minimum time equivalent to 15 ECTS for project and 30 ECTS for the master thesis.

Reuired students

The project is available for 3 - 4 students. Both Experimental and numerical work are available in this project.

Location: Waterpower laboratory

Contact: Chirag Trivedi (chirag.trivedi@ntnu.no)

Students working on the similar project

  • Mathias Eikebø (mathias.eikebo@ntnu.no)
  • Kerlef Valen Kerlefsen (kerlefvk@stud.ntnu.no)

2. Particle image velocimetry measurement of flow in a Francis turbine RENEWHYDRO

Hydropower is the backbone of energy need in Norway. Majority of the turbine types are Francis in Norway. When it comes to turbine operation with wind power, the hydraulic turbines undergo complex flow conditions. Specifically, the flow field in the turbine runner and vaneless space is highly complex during the start-up and shutdown. Moreover, stochastic pressure loading is significant and results in highly asymmetric loading on the blades. Recent work on Francis turbine clearly indicates high fatigue loading during the start-stop sequence of the turbine. This work is part of the large research project, RenewHydro, in the Waterpower laboratory.

Overall tasks

  1. Conduct experiments on the model Francis turbine at transient operating conditions, aim is to use PIV method for capturing the turbulent characteristics of the flow.
  2. Conduct numerical modeling of the turbine using ANSYS.
  3. Further tasks will be based on on-going master thesis work.

Requirement

  1. It is valuable to the project work, if student(s) is studied one of the following courses.
    1. Fluid Mechanic
    2. Computational Fluid Dynamics
    3. Turbomachinery
  2. After completing the project work, the student must be prepared to continue for master thesis work in Spring semester.
  3. The student must be prepared to spend minimum time equivalent to 15 ECTS for project and 30 ECTS for the master thesis.

Required students

We are looking for 2 - 3 students. Both Experimental and numerical work are available in this project.

Location: Waterpower laboratory

Contact: Chirag Trivedi (chirag.trivedi@ntnu.no)

Students working on the similar project

  • Anker Moi Pedersen (ankermp@stud.ntnu.no)
  • Mikal Høie Tjølsen (mikalht@stud.ntnu.no)


Other opportunities

| PHD

We have PhD position available in RenewHydro research project. The PhD candidate will work under Research Program 2.2 (RP2.2). Main working area is reversible pump-turbine, both experimental and numerical work. If you are interested, submit an application through official website JobbNorge. Application deadline: 16.05.2025.


| POSTDOC

We have Postdoctoral Fellowship available in store2hydro team. The Postdoctoral Fellow will be another addition to the existing PhD researcher in the team. The recruited Postdoctoral Fellow will be responsible for the project activities including, project deliveries, milestones, publications, numerical modeling of the reversible pump-turbine, thruster and the preparing test rig for the large scale experiments under work package 5 of the project. The Postdoctoral Fellow will also responsible for design of the thruster, preparing essential drawings for the manufacturing of the thruster and conducting measurements. If you are interested, submit an application through official website JobbNorge. Application deadline: 28.03.2025.