City-based colleges win KPIT Sparkle award

City-based colleges win KPIT Sparkle award

PUNE: Two city-based colleges, team Aqua from Army Institute of Technology (AIT) has received a platinum award for developing vertical axis water turbine (VAWT) and team Drivetrain from Jayawantrao Sawant College of Engineering, Pune, which has designed a novel transmission system (single stage gearbox) won the ‘Most Popular Award’ at the fifth edition of national innovation and design contest, KPIT Sparkle. 

The theme this year was ‘Energy and Mobility for the Future’.

Shivam Mishra and Sachin Dwivedi of final year mechanical engineering from AIT have build a VAWT, which is 24 per cent more efficient than a conventional system. The turbine can be used for both small and large-scale energy production and in all flow conditions.

Speaking to Sakal Times, Mishra said, “One of the biggest disadvantages of water turbines is that it needs a dam to be made for the energy production, which makes the setup expensive while lot of skill is also required.” 

Mishra also stated that although there is good water resource available, generation of hydro-energy is very less in comparison to thermal energy. “Using water resource to produce electricity is a perfect option. But due to the complexity of design and initial costs and also the absence of a good design for a small scale energy production, the small scale water turbines are not used,” said Mishra, adding that on this note, the duo set to invent a new technology for it.

“VAWT is a device, simple in construction and which gives an appreciable output. In this project, we have proposed a new design for a water turbine, which can be used both in small and large scale energy production. The best thing in the proposed design is that it does not need any dam for the setup, it is a water turbine used to trap energy

from the surface of the water flow irrespective of the flow of the water stream.

FUNCTION OF VAWT
“There are lots of surface water turbine designs already proposed and used but the main problem with them is that they cannot be adjusted according to the varying water level. In this design, we have also proposed a mechanism that can be used to adjust the height of the turbine,” added Mishra.

Five students, Prasanna Agnihotri, Jay Gaikwad, Ajinkya Kate, Srinivas Sirsat and Rushikesh Sagare of third-year mechanical engineering from Jayawantrao Sawant College of Engineering build a ‘novel transmission system (single stage gearbox)’ to increase the load carrying capacity and gradeability of existing e-vehicles.

“The existing e-vehicles have hub motors due to which they can’t climb up or down hilly roads easily, also they can’t carry much load. The torque-speed capacity, which enables pick-up speed is also less. Therefore, we have developed a transmit system, which will be centrally mounted breastless direct current (BLDC) motor which will overcome all these challenges,” said Agnihotri.

“We have increased the torque speed by 13.30 Newton Meter and have achieved a maximum speed of 50 mph. It can easily carry multiple people with the help of new technology,” added Agnihotri. They have developed the project under the guidance of Prof Virendra Bhojwani.

These teams will now receive mentorship at Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE), IIM Ahmedabad, Incubation Cell IITM, Science and Technology Park, BHAU Institute and Centre for Innovation, Incubation, and Linkages (CIIL) Savitribai Phule Pune University.

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