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Running head: EFFICIENT DAMS

Efficient Dams
Adam Peterson
Harrison High School
December 2022
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Running head: EFFICIENT DAMS

Abstract

The building of dams has decreased the water flow downstream from the dams and the

water level has majorly dropped in some cases leading to less water for indigenous groups that

originally lived off of and relied on the river.. With the dams holding water up top, there is a

greater chance for the water to have bacteria in it. A way to hasten up the speed of the dams

while keeping the same amount of power is the goal of this study. This study will test different

ways to alter the blades of the turbine to make them faster. In this study it was found that altering

the blades by shaving them down does not affect the turbine, but removing some of the blades

has a major effect on the speed of the turbine however, it barely changes the power output. The

best way is to take out half of the blades. By doing this the turbine will become lighter and have

less resistance leading to a faster deposit time than the control.

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Running head: EFFICIENT DAMS

Efficient Dams
Hydroelectric plants are a great way to generate clean electricity. These plants use the

running water in rivers to generate power at the top of the plant, and after the water runs through

the plant it is released downstream.

Although the hydro plants are a great way to make clean power, they have downsides as

well. The plant reduces the flow of the river downstream and the stagnant water at the top of the

plant is susceptible to contamination. In native tribes in Africa have to walk long distances to a

clean water source because the source by their tribe is polluted due to the building of dams

upstream from them. The plants make new erosion patterns downstream that affect the landscape

leading to cultural changes such as new erosion paths that damage the environment and to the

people who live off of the river.

A remake of the hydro plants is needed to save the rivers from changing too much. The

goal of the project is to make the hydro plants have more water flow while producing the same

amount of energy. To make this happen the testing will consist of altering the turbines to make

them lighter and have more waterflow

Literature Review
Dams negatively affect the nearby environment. Luiza Moura Peluso , a researcher at a

Federal University of Mato Grosso, comes to the conclusion that 45% of the migratory fish

paths in the Upper Paraguay River had been blocked or obstructed by the creation of dams on the

river. Peluso also adds that in the future the dams “will negatively affect fishery yield[s]” (Peluso

et al., 2021). Another study by Jacek Bogusław Szmańda, a researcher at the Institute of

Geography and Spatial Development in Poland, finds that the operation of hydroelectric power
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Running head: EFFICIENT DAMS

plants has changed the fluvial system of the river due to erosion. Even operating the plant for a

short amount of time has made the “channels bec[ome] incised and narrowed” (Szmańda et al.,

2022). Dams affect not only the environment, but the people who live near them.

Dams have an effect on the people that live by the dams. Reilly Willis, a researcher at the

School of Law in Ipswich UK, comes to the conclusion that the indigenous tribes in Sudan that

live next to the Merowe dams change their culture to fit in with the urban population. 60,000

people have lost their land and/or livelihood due to the “government's hydropower

programmes”(Willis, 2021). Adrian Negra, a researcher at the University of Oradea in

Romania comes to the conclusion that with the building of new dams the water level downstream

will continue to lower and there will be less access to clean water. Other diseases such as

malaria, trypanosomiasis, and onchocerciasis have been “brought by water infrastructures [such]

as dams”(Negra & Benea 2022). Another study that was conducted by Tania Sebastian, a

researcher at the School of Law, Vellore Institute of Technology in India finds that storing water

in dams leads to concerns for water pollution that affects the people that use that water everyday.

Because of this women in rural places have less education due to “walking long distances [to] the

source of water” leading to less time to learn new skills. (Sebastian, 2022). Dams not only affect

people and the environment, they also affect the water flow downstream.

Dams have a negative effect on the water flow downstream from them. Wenxun Dong, a

researcher at Wuhan University in China, finds that with more dams that as water goes through

the less force the water flows downstream. During the full operation the dam had “a large impact

on the discharge [flow]”(Dong et al. 2022). Not only do dams affect water flow, but they also

affect the environment and the people by them in negative ways.

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Running head: EFFICIENT DAMS

Method

Materials:

hose to supply the water

a water turbine generator to convert the water into power

markerfire Electrical tester

Dremel

5-Gallon bucket

Procedure:

1. 1.First modify the turbines that were bought by using a Dremel to sand off half of the
blades of one of the turbines and using the Dremel to shave the width of the turbines to 2
mm.
2. 2. After the turbines are modified, attach the turbines to the hose adapter then into the
hose.
3. 3.Set up a phone to record the full test with the electrical tester and the bucket in view to
get an accurate time and volts produced while turning on the water.
4. 4.Pour 5 gallons of water into the turbine catching it in the 5-gallon bucket.
5. 5.While the water is running through the turbine use the Makerfire electrical tester to
measure the volts that the turbine makes.
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Running head: EFFICIENT DAMS

Data Analysis

These graphs show the time and the volts made for the control turbine during the testing.

These graphs show the time and the volts made for the shaved down turbine during the testing.

These graphs show the time and the volts made for the turbine that had half as many blades

during the testing

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Running head: EFFICIENT DAMS

These graphs show how long each test took to fill up a five-gallon bucket and how many

volts the turbines were making during the tests. There were three turbines in which two were

modified and one was the control to get an accurate baseline for the testing. The turbines were

modified in two ways, the first was shaving down the blades to a thickness of 2mm and the other

turbine was modified by removing half of the blades on the turbine. The results of the testing

show that shaving down the blades has little to no effect on the speed of the turbine of the output

of it. The turbine that had half the number of blades was faster at filling up the bucket but

decreased the output by an average of 0.07 volts.

Discussion

In conclusion, only half of the results that were collected from the data matched the

hypothesis that was made before testing. The expected outcome was for the modified turbines to

perform better than the stock control turbine. The shaved down turbine did not change much

from the control turbine. On the other hand, the turbine that had half as many blades performed

better in the speed but performed slightly worse in the output of electricity than the control

turbine. Since the turbine with half as many blades was lighter it could have influenced the spin

rate of the turbine making it faster but having less resistance leading to the results that were

made in the testing. One way that the project could have not perform as expected was not

keeping the same curve of the blades after shaving down the blades as it could have more drag in
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Running head: EFFICIENT DAMS

the water slowing it down. The water pressure was also not regulated leading to different

pressures from test to test that could have speed up or slowed down the turbines leading to a

slower time and less output of electricity.

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Running head: EFFICIENT DAMS

References

Benea, C. B., & Negrea, A. (2022). Africa’s Water Insecurity and Its Triggers. Annals of the

University of Oradea, Economic Science Series, 31(1), 273–279.

Dong, W., Zhang, Y., Zhang, L., Chen, N., Zou, Y., Du, Y., & Liu, J. (2022). Study of the Three

Gorges Dam’s Impact on the Discharge of Yangtze River during Flood Season after Its

Full Operation in 2009. Water (20734441), 14(7), 1052. https://doi-org.proxygsu-

scob.galileo.usg.edu/10.3390/w14071052

Peluso, L. M., Mateus, L., Penha, J., Bailly, D., Cassemiro, F., Suárez, Y., Fantin-Cruz, I.,

Kashiwaqui, E., & Lemes, P. (2022). Climate change negative effects on the Neotropical

fishery resources may be exacerbated by hydroelectric dams. Science of the Total

Environment, 828.

https://doi-org.proxygsu-scob.galileo.usg.edu/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.154485

Sebastian, T. (2022). A “Chennai” in Every City of the World: The Lethal Mix of the Water

Crisis, Climate Change, and Governance Indifference. Law, Technology & Humans,

4(1), 79–101. https://doi-org.proxygsu-scob.galileo.usg.edu/10.5204/lthj.2165

Szmańda, J. B., Gierszewski, P. J., Habel, M., Luc, M., Witkowski, K., Bortnyk, S., &

Obodovskyi, O. (2021). Response of the Dnieper river fluvial system to the river erosion

caused by the operation of the Kaniv hydro-electric power plant (Ukraine). Catena, 202.

https://doi-org.proxygsu-scob.galileo.usg.edu/10.1016/j.catena.2021.105265
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Running head: EFFICIENT DAMS

Willis, R. A. D. (2021). Becoming indigenous or being overcome? Strategic indigenous rights

litigation in the Sudan. International Journal of Human Rights, 25(6), 925–944.

https://doi-org.proxygsu-scob.galileo.usg.edu/10.1080/13642987.2020.1799195