Hathway, E.A., Kang, J. and Johnson, N. (2014) Acoustics of weirs: Potential implications for micro-hydropower noise. Renewable Energy, 71. 351 - 360. ISSN 0960-1481
Abstract
There is great potential for the expansion of the small or micro scale hydropower network. Of the 43 thousand weirs in the UK there are only 500 consented hydro schemes. Planning applications for such schemes require a noise assessment. Noise evaluation of a proposed renewable scheme is often complicated by the turbine sites having distinct noise characteristics in the first instance, which are often caused by the weirs themselves. Three types of weir were studied: Broad Crest weirs were studied in detail; this is complimented by further studies in Flat V and Crump weirs. Flow data was collected for ten sites from the Environment Agency and the National Rivers Flow Archive to assess the collected Sound Pressure Level (SPL) and calculated Sound poWer Level (SWL) in relation to various river flows. Weir head height, width and meteorological data were also collected. It has been shown that the SPL data collection method used was the right choice, as the greatest amplitudes at the water impact interface at all weir types was recorded. SPL and SWL were found to be within a 36e82 dBz and 45e86 dBz range respectively for all weir types. These values can be used in computer simulations of sound propagation. The mean SPL and SWL difference between the weir types are 6.1 dBz and 6.3 dBz. Head height has the greatest effect on SPLs. Attenuation with distance was found to be similar to that of a free field line source in general.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2014 The Author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Civil and Structural Engineering (Sheffield) The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > School of Architecture (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EPSRC EP/P505100/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 17 Jul 2014 13:11 |
Last Modified: | 17 Jul 2014 13:11 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2014.05.049 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.renene.2014.05.049 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:79761 |