Surge Tank Design Considerations for Controlling Water Hammer Effects at Hydro-electric Power Plants

A theoretical analysis based on some design considerations for surge tanks is carried out. The effects of different parameters such as the friction losses coefficient and the surge tank cross-sectional area on the water surface oscillations tank and the total discharge are investigated. System of non-linear ordinary differential equations are numerically solved and manipulated. Results show that increasing cross-sectional area and friction losses coefficient results in decreasing the surge tank level and discharge rates. In addition, the height of the pressure waves and fluctuations that induced by the water hammer will be reduced and steadier. According to this study, the surge tank Surge Tank Design Considerations for Controlling Water ... ـــــــــ ــــــــــــــ ـــــــــــــ University Bulletin – ISSUE No.15 – Vol . 32013 148 dimensions could be estimated theoretically as follows; surge tank cross-sectional area is about 400 ~500 m which is corresponding to a first upsurge of about 3 ~ 4 m, respectively. Beside the above findings, cost, topography, location, operation conditions, type of equipments, load requirements, labour ...etc. should be also considered in the final design stage.