Postdoctoral Fellow in Hydropower Technology

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The Norwegian Research Centre for Hydropower Technology, HydroCen, has a vacancy for a Postdoctoral Fellow. HydroCen is hosted by the Department of Energy and Process Engineering at NTNU in Trondheim, Norway, and it is funded by the Research Council of Norway and the Norwegian hydropower industry. The research is both theoretical and experimental and it is mainly focused on hydropower technology. However, the market, environmental impact and social acceptance is also part of the research.

The candidate will work on surveillance and optimization of Pelton turbines for future flexible operation. It involves both numerical and experimental work in the laboratory. The work will be part of work package 2 in HydroCen. More information can be found here .

The Pelton turbine will be used to develop monitoring methods and verify numerical analyses. Visual investigations of the flow in Pelton turbines will be carried out in the Waterpower Laboratory. High-speed camera has been used to visualize the flow in a Pelton turbine and measurement techniques were developed through earlier studies in the Waterpower Laboratory at NTNU. Further work is needed in order to verify numerical analyses of the flow inside the Pelton turbine runner. The technique will also be used to monitor sediment erosion in the Pelton turbine. This requires in-depth studies on how to interpret visual images from eroded surfaces in the Pelton turbine runner. The goal is to develop a machine learning algorithm that will compare images from the turbine up to images of a new turbine, and thus estimate its condition. With such a system, maintenance can be planned in relation to the actual wear and efficiency loss on the turbine, as well as for minimizing downtime and optimizing maintenance time.

The position reports to Professor Ole Gunnar Dahlhaug at the Department of Energy and Process Engineering.