Sri Lanka Engineering News - May / June 2016

IESL NEWS 9

PREVENTION OF Food for Thought

FLOODING BY THE KELANI RIVER for Future
DURING THE MONSOON USING Engineers
FREELY AVAILABLE WIND ENERGY
by Eng (Dr.) Chandana Gamage
Chairman -
by Eng. A. L. G. Wijeyekoon
IT & Communications Engineering Sectional
(Membership No: M 378)
Committee of the IESL

I A
ntroduction A suggested Calculations During the One pump at a time should CM Student Chapter Eng. (Dr) A. N. S.
method is given in this short dry season the Kelani level start automatically for every of the University of Kulasinghe, and Eng. D.J.
paper to prevent flooding of can be taken at 5 and the 3" rise in water level, thus Moratuwa organized Wimalasurendra. He asked
the Kelani river during the mon- water discharged as 880 preventing the water rising a discussion with Eng. for the opinion of students
soon season using the freely cusecs. At monsoon times to flood level which is taken Arjuna Manamperi, an emi- about their future ambitions.
available wind during this time. the water level will rise to about in this example as 7. In or-
nent speaker and a Council Most of the students had the
The capital expenditure spent 7 and the outflow around der to work out the power
Member from The Institution idea of joining the industry.
on it will amply repay over the 54000 cusecs. These figures required, it may be best to
years when compared to the are taken for the calculation use the levels and flow rate of Engineers Sri Lanka A few had the idea of con-
heavy damages it has caused here. However more accurate obtained during the recent (IESL). The discussion un- tinuing their career as Aca-
to the livelihood and properties values may be taken from the flooding, as then the num- der the topic How engineer- demics. He gave a broader
of people living in the areas recent heavy flooding that oc- ber of wind turbines and ing undergraduates can work career vision and explained
near the river. With global curred and used to calculate pumps can be ascertained with IESL for professional de- the mission critical impor-
warming a key factor in the the power required with an for these values. velopment was held on the tance of Solving Sri Lanka's
coming years, it would be pru- additional safety factor. 16th of June, 2016 at the problems and doing value
dent to think of flooding and The wind turbines and Seminar Room of the De- added work delivering prod-
damages caused by it espe- Therefore from the above fig- pumps should belong to the partment of Computer Sci- ucts, services, and intellec-
cially if a Megapolis is being ures it will be necessary to Ceylon Electricity Board, so ence and Engineering, Uni- tual properties to global mar-
contemplated here. Of course pump out about (54000 880) that apart from the mainte-
versity of Moratuwa. kets earning foreign ex-
it is assumed that proper drain- or 53120 cusecs of water to nance of this equipment, no
change. Eng. Manamperi
age of water from these areas the sea at the estuary to keep cost of running will be in-
to the river is carried out and the level at 5 during monsoon curred by the government Eng. Manamperi started the elaborated on the difficult
maintained, as the proposed times theoretically. This would since the wind energy is session by reflecting upon economic challenges Sri
method will only prevent the be about 3,320,000 lbs/sec free. Also during normal his past industrial experi- Lanka is facing and the duty
Kelani from flooding. (62.5 x 53120) and if the wa- times the wind energy sup- ences and the passion he of young professionals to
ter is pumped at a height of plied to the grid will be more had for Production Engineer- serve their country.
Concept During the time of 3, the energy required will be than ample to cover such ing. As a fresh graduate from
the South West Monsoon the 9,960,000 ft lbs/sec ( 3 x costs. University of Peradeniya, he Eng. Manamperi explained
wind energy in the Mannar and 3,320,000 ). This works out to had joined the state sector the benefits of becoming an
Puttlam regions are high and 9,960,000/550 = 18109 HP or It is roughly estimated that for a brief six-month period, IESL member and the impor-
it is proposed to use this en- 0 .746 x 18109 KW which is capital costs will be around before joining Walker Sons tance of working with IESL
ergy tapped via wind turbines 13.5 MW. 25 to 30 million US Dollars
& Co. Ltd. while working for the betterment of the En-
installed here to pump out the but will be small when com-
where he obtained the IESL gineering profession and our
additional water flow out at the Project -The above energy pared to the loss caused by
estuary of the river with suit- required can be obtained eas- flooding which can occur Charter. Sharing over three country. During this part of
able electric pumps installed ily from 7 Nos: 2 MW wind tur- more often annually during decades of experiences in the session, he showcased
at this location. As the water bines which installed in to global warming. Sri Lanka and USA, Eng. many of the digital resources
level rises the pumps will start Mannar and connected to the Manamperi explained the (IESL news letter SLEN, En-
automatically in sequence as grid will give maximum perfor- Also as mentioned earlier, value of taking calculated gineer Journal, Videos, Pub-
indicated in the calculation. mance during monsoon all drains and outlets lead- risks to define his career and lic Lecture live streaming,
During normal times, the elec- times. ing to the river in the area, the variety of roles he played etc.) that are accessible to
trical energy generated by the should be cleaned and in organizations as a trans- the public through IESL
wind turbines will supply power It is suggested that 7 Nos: 2 maintained by the authori- formational leader. website (www.iesl.lk), IESL
to the grid and as the water MW pumps be installed at the ties concerned to prevent FaceBook Page and IESL
level in the river rises, this estuary of the Kelani river and the disaster that occurred
The next part of the session Twitter (@iesllanka and
power will be used by the the water pumped out to sea recently. The project de-
was conducted in an inter- @iesl_mesc) and encour-
pumps in a sequence to pump at a height of 3 and to a dis- scribed will only prevent the
out the excess water to the tance of about 50 yards river from flooding. active manner where Eng. aged the gathering to make
sea, thus keeping the level through suitably sized pipes Manamperi explained about the best use of them and
from rising above a set figure. from each pump. the past heroes of IESL such promote them within the
as Eng. B. D. Rampala, University community. He
was very emphatic about
Contd. from page 1... PRESIDENTS CORNER..... university students contrib-
uting to IESL publications,
The IESL and our professionals worked hard with other professionals under the United Profes-
sionals Movement on government proposed ETCA and were able to convince the them, gov- participating in IESL public
ernment and planning authorities, of the future repercussions of unplanned bilateral agree- lecturers, and utilizing IESL
ments on professional works performed by our own professionals. Now our own professional physical resources in col-
Engineers and professional of other disciplines are part of the planning process. It is the best laborative efforts that would
opportunity for our engineers to formulate good action plans to utilize our talents and give the supplement students edu-
leadership in the development process in a sustainable manner. cational experiences.

Another milestone of IESL is that the government has decided to implement the Railway The discussion concluded
Electrification and Modernization Project (REMP) with the assistance of Asian Development with a brief question and
Bank (ADB). Late great Engineer Eng. D. J. Wimalasurendra proposed railway electrification answer session.
with his hydropower development project in 1918 and in 2008 the IESL appointed task force
submitted a very comprehensive report with experts of Sri Lanka Railway(SLR) and the Ceylon
Electricity Board (CEB). The dream has come to realization and now it is our duty as IESL
members to join together and work hard to complete this endeavor for peoples benefit and
economic development by transport sector as well.

All these events indicate to us that synergy of engineers is the best way to achieve our lost
place in the society. Therefore, on behalf of the IESL Council I urge all of you to come forward
with different development proposals and the council is always with the members to promote
your valuable proposals and to convince the government the value of the Engineers.