| Summary: | The potential of the river that could be used to generate electricity in rural areas which are not covered by electricity distribution from Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) is still large . Nevertheless, it is constrained by low head of river, although it has high potential discharge. Furthermore, the selection of turbine which has optimum efficiency for very low head, simple construction and low cost of development is a must. Vortex turbine is the one of turbines which meets those criteria. This turbine utilizes kinetic energy of vortex water and converts it into a shaft power. The objectives of this research were to obtain the torque that could be generated from the vortex turbine by varying the width of turbine blades and to know the output power also the optimum efficiency obtained from this variation. This research was conducted by using vortex pool in a laboratory scale with a diameter of 108 cm and 6 turbine blades on permanent rotation at 50 rpm, 60 rpm, and 70 rpm. Turbine blades were made from flat rectangular steel with a length of 40 cm sized 1/6, 2/6, 3/6, 4/6 and 5/6 times to radius of vortex pool. The results of the research showed the torque as 1.40 Nm at rotation is 50 rpm. The maximum power is obtained from blade with width of 3/6 times radius of the pool, that is 8.60 Watts at head 0.362 m and discharge 11.83 l/s or 0.01183 m3/s at rotaion shaft is 70 rpm. This experiment also generated and turbine efficiency of 16.46% at rotation of shaft is 70 rpm.The spesific rotation of the turbine is 553,7 rpm.
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