TO REMOVE DENSE SEDIMENTATION WITH ELEVATED SUPPORTIVE ESTABLISHMENT FIELD OF INVENTION

The present invention related to an automatic hydraulic trash rack cleaning machine to remove dense sedimentation with elevated supportive establishment. More particularly, the present invention relates to a machine which eliminates large amount of trash and dense sediment debris that are obstructing the flow of water which generates the hydro electric power at hydro power plant.

BACKGROUND OF INVENTION

Recently demand for energy has increased many folds due to rapid urbanization and industrial growth, which is difficult meet through available conventional energy sources like oil, gas, coal etc. Moreover, the global crisis on petroleum products has forced every nation worldwide to think of some alternative non-conventional sources of energy.

Natural resources like wind, tides, solar, biomass, etc generate energy which is known as "Non-conventional energy". These are totally pollution free and hence we can use these to produce a clean form of energy without any polluting wastages, thus saving our precious environment.

As the consumption and demand of energy grows, the population starts depending more and more on fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas day by day. Hence, there is a growing need to secure the energy supply for the future, since the reserves of oil and gas are fast depleting and their prices keep on rising day by day. Hence, it is increasingly necessary to use more and more renewable sources of energy which are going to play a major role in the years to come.

Non-con ventional sources of energy have the potential to minimize pollution, reduce global warming, create new industries and jobs, and move the nation toward a cleaner, healthier, secured, cheaper energy of the future. However, it is not without its challenges and impact on environment. Hydropower is a type of non-conventional energy. It is a process of utilizing the mechanical potential energy of water flowing or falling from heights, thus transforming it into electrical energy to generate electricity.

Hydroelectric power includes both massive hydroelectric dams and small run-of-the-river plants. However, the development of large hydropower has become increasingly problematic due to socio-economic environmental issues.

In today's modern world and with large deforestation of upstream areas growing population pressure in the hills, the presence of debris and trash in all type of water bodies has increased to a very large extent. Historically debris and sedimentation accumulation on bridge piers and hydroelectric dams has been chief concerns associated with river water flows. As the amount of debris and sedimentation builds on the trash racks, the force it exerts on the trash racks can result in catastrophic failure, reduce the flow, resulting in the buildup of a backwater and greatly reducing the efficiency of electrical energy generation at the project.

The accumulation of sediments or floating debris will also potentially reduce flow capacity and increase upstream flooding. This reduces the generation of hydropower even though huge quantity of water is available in the dams.

It is pertaining to note that canals, drainage ditches, irrigation channels are frequently contaminated with debris such as the limbs of trees, dead bodies of animals, tires, bottles, cans, other artificial man made waste and sediments like rocks, stones, pebbles and mud. The construction activities in & along with the river basin works result in heavy silt and pebbles / rock / stones getting dumped as well as disturbed to a very large extent. Also strong current flow of water in the river brings in all kinds of such materials into the dam. The trash racks are designed to have a very small opening to protect the turbines from any damage. In very small opening trash racks the dense sediments/ rocks and other debris get deposited before the trash rack. If such waste enters a pump or turbines in dams or reservoirs, it can severely damage these critical equipments of hydro power plant. Due to this, the trash racks get blocked and choked at very short intervals of time. Hence, the smooth flow and passage of water gets regularly blocked. This leads to unplanned interruption and shutdowns, huge loses on account of decrease in the working efficiency of the plants and reduced life of downstream equipments. It is therefore necessary to protect such means by the provision of an automatic hydraulic trash rack cleaning machine to remove dense sedimentation and all kinds of trash & debris from depth of the dam specifically at trash racks. Trash racks are required at power plant and pumping plant intakes, on canals, turnouts and diversion structures to eliminate the passage of large floating and submerged debris that would cause damage or operational problems at downstream structures and equipment.

Traditionally trash racks were cleaned by hand with equipment developed by the people that used it. Thus the hand racks became easier and easier to handle. The size and position of trash racks were influenced by the necessities of manual trash rack cleaning: the depth of water at the trash rack was limited to 5- 6 meters. Other method of cleaning is to open the spillway gates, due to that huge amount of water wastage occurred. Also this method does not clean the stuck debris on trash rack and pebbles/ stone/ rocks. It may be possibility of flood in downstream areas due to that huge losses occurred.

A hydraulic Trash Rack Cleaning Machine (TRCM) are used to reliably remove debris (branches, trunks, leaves, grass, bambooetc.) coming with the water and getting struck on the trash racks and blocking the flow of water to ensure unobstructed flow of water to the turbines.

The commercially known hydraulic- type trash rack cleaning machine has a limitation of cleaning length of debris upto 5 - 10 meter and the bucket or the excavator attached to the arm of the machine has capacity to hold veryless quantity of debris which leads to longer operational hours and are less cost effective, does not have the capability to remove the dense sediment, pebbles/ rock/ stone. This type of cleaning devices cannot withstand the gushing flow of water which damages or opens the bucket and releases the collected debris. The state of the art do not provides efficient cleaning for sedimentation or rocks at bottom part of trash racks.

CN204475393U discloses a novel four-winding drum trash remover. A trash collectinghopper is arranged between supporting legs of a steel structure; the top ends of thesupporting legs are connected with a platform of the steel structure through a mainbeam; a windlass mechanism is mounted on the platform; a trash removing grabbucket or a trash removing scraper bucket is hung below a tractor through a steel wirerope on the windlass mechanism. The novel four-winding drum trash remover has the trash removing function of a trash rack-type trash remover, has a cantilever structure, and can remove flotage within a certain range in front of a dam of a power stationthrough the trash removing grab bucket; new flotage can flow to the front side of thedam along with water so as to be continuously removed; various movements in thetrash removing process of the novel four- winding drum trash remover can be achievedthrough coordinated movement of four winding drums of the windlass mechanism; the novel four-winding drum trash remover is compact in structure and high in efficiency.

CN2101511668U discloses a trash removal hoist with anti-tipping auxiliary supportinglegs. The trash rack is lifted and cleaned through a water inlet of a water turbine of apower station or a water diversion port of a pump station. Anauxiliary supporting leg device is fixedly mounted on the outer side of a cantilever end rail of the trash removal hoist gantry; when extending out, the auxiliary supporting legdevice can abut against a dam face to play a role in preventing the trash removal hoistfrom tipping over, better tipping- over resistance can be achieved under the conditionsthat the track distance and the track model are not changed and no balance weight isadditionally arranged, the trash removal hoist auxiliary supporting leg device can bewidelyapplied to new power station trash removal hoist addition and old power stationtransformation engineering, and wide practicability is achieved.

The problems related to the cited prior art is that it has trash collector which is attached to ropes that travels up to certain distance and also it needs guides or tracks pre-installed at the dam so that trash collector can travel to collect the debris which floats on the water or loosely attached at trash rack. The bucket used for collecting the trash and debris does not have enough capacity to withstand or hold debris. The state of the art discloses technologies that are not sufficient to hold high capacity of basket or grabbing means. It is observed that current technologies have limitation of opening up of basket during the lifting due to over-all high weight in the system. The said disadvantages lead to drop of trash or debris in to dam that leads to diminish the object of whole system i.e. compromised energy consumption at turbine, undue repetition of cleaningcycles and time consuming process.

The wire rope drum system has several limitations as it goes down on its own weight so this machine won't penetrate into the dense debris and trash and cannotremove the dense sediment and rock/ stone/pebbles from the dam or river/reservoir. The machine is slow and less efficient and it can not operate automatically. Further, there are no any essential systems installed. It consists of a rope like hoisting mechanism which has very limited capacity to carry debris.

Hence, to overcome the above mentioned problems, it is desperately needed to invent a machine which collects large quantity of debris like dense sediments, rocks/ pebbles etc. at once from a dam or reservoir which has weak civil slab.

OBTECT OF INVENTION The main object of the present invention is automatic and efficient deep water hydraulic trash rack cleaning machine supported on a fabricated rail arranged on steel beam structure which is mounted on civil pier.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an automatic hydraulic trash rack cleaning machine with a hydraulic single piece boom that has capacity to penetrate into deep thick debris and stone/pebbles with large force and remove them from water.

Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an automatic hydraulic trash rack cleaning machine which can remove heavy load of debris and stone/pebbles and dump it directly into the trolley, thereby saving lot of time and reduce wastage of water.

Another object of the present invention is to provide automatic hydraulic trash rack cleaning machine that move fast and continuous with high control precision. An object of the present invention is to provide a hydraulic supply and power pack in which both the delivery pressure and the delivery volume of the pump are matched more closely to the instantaneous requirements of the hydraulic equipment being operated. Another object of the present invention is to provide anautomatic hydraulic trash rack cleaning machine which is equipped with teeth like bucket to hold the debris from deep inside the water.

Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an automatic hydraulic trash rack cleaning machine which is highly efficient and can penetrate to the depth of dam from the surface to clean sediment debris/ soil/stone/pebbles.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an automatic hydraulic trash rack cleaning machine which is equipped by a flap with teeth like cuts that matches the bars of trash rack and provide the protective layer to hold the teeth by combing mechanism.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an automatic trash rack cleaning machine which is performed in different mode that is a manual operation mode, a semi-automatic operation mode and a fully automatic operation mode.

SUMMARY OF INVENTION:

The present invention relates to an automatic and efficient deep water hydraulic trash rack cleaning machine with elevated supportive establishment. The present invention focuses on the steel beam structure which is take all the load of the trash rack cleaning machine. In preferred embodiments the rail track is fabricated on the steel beam structure supported from both side civil concrete structuredof dam and the adjacent side of concrete slab intake of the dam. The arm of the trash rack cleaning machine works on hydraulic system and can penetrate deep into debris and remove them by the combining mechanism of the bucket attached to arm, where the bucket consists of a plates with teeth and a flap which holds the debris/sedimentation and dumps it directly into debris collection trolley without the loss of water during the operation. The present invention is efficiently designed to hold debris of 1-2 tons at once and it can penetrate deep into debris by high hydraulic force exerted by the trash rack cleaning machine hydraulic cylinders whilst withstanding the buoyancy of the dense trash/debris along with thepressure of gushing water. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

Fig. 1 shows diagrammatic perspective side view of the present invention Fig. 2 shows top view of establishment means disclosed in the present invention.

Fig. 3 shows top view of installed trash rack cleaning machine on establishment means of the present invention

Fig. 4 shows side viewof a close type skip grab structure of the present invention.

Fig. 5 shows front view of a close type skip grab of the present invention. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF INVENTION

Before explaining the present invention in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of the arrangement of parts illustrated in the accompanied drawings. The invention is capable of other embodiments, as depicted in different figures as described above and of being practiced or carried out in a variety of ways. It is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein is for the purpose of description and not of limitation.

The invention discloses an automatic hydraulic trash rack cleaning machine to remove dense sedimentation with elevated supportive establishment

In order to describe the each essential component efficiently and particularly at the component has been divided in the three major categories based on their function and position: · Establishment means

• Guiding means

• Grabbing means

Establishment means mainly includes weak civil pier (20), steel beam and steel plate structure (18), rail track (17), counter weight (5) and trash rack (21).

Guiding means mainly includes main frame (1), wheel frame (2), wheels (3), longitudinal drive (4), single piece boom (8), main arm (7), main arm hydraulic cylinder (9), boom in out hydraulic cylinder (9A), hydraulic power pack (13), operator cabin (16) and electric control panel (15). Grabbing means mainly includes skip grab (10), skip grab teeth (11), and flap (19) and debris collection trolley (6).

Figure 1 describes diagrammatic perspective side view of the present invention in installed condition at the dam. The establishment means of the present invention provides firm installment to trash rack cleaning machine at the edges, weak civil pier (20) or dam intake which has a limitation of width for the foundation of trash rack cleaning machine. The trash rack (21) is located exact beneath in the deep water having the size dimension around 5- 10 meters long. The civil pier (20) structure is inclined at some angle as shown in Figure 1.

A steel beam structure (18) is established on the upstream of the dam supported by two piers of the dam which compensate the limitation of width of the civil slab intake and take all upstream front load of the machine and divide it on the said two piers. In the present invention a steel beam structure (18) is made from the high strength steel material. In the installation position, steel beam (18) is anchored in horizontal direction with the two concrete civil piers of the dam. The steel beam structure (18) supports a steel platform which is made by the high strength steel beams and chequered plates. Due to the steel beam structure (18) the trash rack cleaning machine get extension on the base is about 5-10 meter towards the upstream side and it is easy to remove the trash from the trash rack (21) mounted on beneath of the inclined civil structure/dam. A fabricated rail track (17) of establishment means disposed perpendicular to steel beam structure (18) and civil base intake of the dam provides free movement for a wheel (3) that is located parallel to wheel frame (2). The one track is mounted on the steel beam structure where placed front wheels of the trash rack cleaning machine which takes all the major load of the machine and other side track is mounted on the base intake of the concrete dam where is placed the rear wheel of the trash rack cleaning machine. The main frame (1) accommodates control panel (15), control panel cabin, counter weight (5) block, main arm (7), operator cabin (16), operation console and hydraulic power pack cabin (14) on the upper surface.

The main arm (7) having shaped like arcuate, pivotally hinged to at the proximal end with main frame (1), in a close proximity to the counter weight (5) block, with arrangement of free vertical angular movement. The movement particularly achieve is that of raised or lowered main arm (7) in comparison to main frame (1).

The flexibility of the main arm (7) is controlled by the main arm hydraulic cylinder (9) which is hinged at the central part of the main arm (7) at one end and with thebase of main frame (1) at the other end. The expansion of the main arm hydraulic cylinder (9) leads to open up or rise of the arm toward the upper side and retraction ofmain arm hydraulic cylinder (9) leads to lowering the position of the main arm (7) in the vice versa. The position of the main arm (7) relative to the hydraulic cylinder (9) provides specific control over the skip grab (10) located at one end of system. The distal end of the main arm (7) ispivotally hinged to proximal end of single piece boom (8). A boom in-out hydraulic cylinder (9A) is hinged on the upper side of the main arm (7) at one end and proximal end of the single piece boom (8) at the other end. The main function of boom in-out hydraulic cylinder (9A) is to provide vertical angular control between the main arm (7) and single piece boom (8). The expansion of the boom in-out hydraulic cylinder (9 A) leads to reduce the angle between main arm (7) and single piece boom (8) while the retraction of the cylinder leads to increase the angle wise- versa. The angular movement of the single piece boom (8) with reference to main arm (7) is 10°to 160° angle is adjustable.

The proximal end of the single piece boom (8) is pivotally hinged at the distal end of the main arm (7). The distal end of the single piece boom (8) is attached to the skip grab (10) that is used to grab the trash sediment from the bottom of the dam. The up and down movement of the skip grab (10), in or outside the water, is controlled by collective movement of the main arm (7) and single piece boom (8) with respective cylinders (9 and 9A). The synchronized movement of cylinder provides rising and lowering position for the skip grab (10).

The single piece boom (8) is provided as per the requirement of the ultimate application where cleaning is required at the deep inside the water. In the preferred embodiment the single piece boom (8) able to reach up to 10- 15 meters deep in debris from establishment means.

The debris collection trolley (6) is installed on a platform which is fabricated from the steel plate structure (18) and supported by the steel beam structure (18). Said debris collection trolley (6) is hydraulically tiltable and after collection of full trolley (6) it disposes all debris to disposal area.

Fig. 2 describes a top view of an establishment means disclosed in the present invention. The components include plurality of steel beamstructure (18) with steel plate structure and rail tracks (17). The inter dependent arrangement of the steel beam structure with steel plate structure (18) and rail tracks (17) provides specific supporting and drivingto the main frame (1) on horizontal path of the trash rack. Particularly the steel beam structure and steel plate structure (18) is positioned to bear the load of the heavy cleaning system. The arrangement and distribution of the steel beam structure (18) and rail track (17)particularly takes the whole load of the machine and distributes it over the two civil piers of the dam.The rail track (17) is longitudinal in shape and parallel mounted upon the plurality of steel beam structure (18) and the base intake of the dam. The rail tracks (17) are made up of steel to withstand the load of hydraulic trash rack cleaning machine. The long length rail track (17) allows the hydraulic trash rack cleaning machine movementto cover maximum area for multiple establishments of trash rack located in a single row.

Fig. 3 describes the top view of installed machine on the establishment means. The main frame (1) accommodates electric control panel (15), hydraulic power pack cabin (14), and operator cabin (16). The operator cabin (16) is situated on the upstream side of the rail track (17). Further, the connection of the operating cabin (16) with the rail track (17) provides movement of operating cabin (16) in either left or right direction as per cleaning requirements.

The skip grab (10) carries the sedimentation and debris and dumps it into the tyre mounted trolley (6) placed on platform beneath of the machine. The said platform is made from the steel plate structure and supported by the steel beam structure. The main frame (1) provides longitudinal direction motion while the main arm (7) and subsequently attached grabbing means provides vertical movement at specific point in the system. The horizontal movement along the longitudinal path is controlled through longitudinal drive (4) and ultimately by the position of wheels (3). In the preferred embodiment the position of the main frame (1) depends upon the requirement or urgency of trash removal at any of the trash rack (21).

Moreover, the operating cabin (16) mainly consists of a plurality of hand operated joysticks which produces signals for the operation of single piece boom (8), power ON/OFF, brake switches. The operator cabin (16) also consists of theelectrical control panel (15) placed just besides of operator seat assembly which accommodates the keypad and joystick for operations. For the operationof machine, mode can be selected from manual/ Semi automatic/ fully automatic by the Push buttons and selector switch provided on the desk of Electric control system installed in the Control cabin. The operator cabin (16) used at the present invention features intense ergonomics as the seat have been designed to provide adequate body support and absorb as much vibration as possible so as to protect the operator from transmitted vibrations. Unlike a normal seat the backrest has to provide upper arm support because of the operator being in the supine position and having to operate the machine using joysticks.

The automation mode is provided for convenience of the operator. There is asafety mechanism and interlock mechanism also provided. In automatic mode the machine will move from parking position to all bays and perform cleaning process cycle automatically and once all the bay are cleaned, machine will return back to its parking position.

Fig. 4 depicts the side view of a close type skip grab (10) structure which is to be bolted at the distal end of the single piece boom (8) in conjugation to motor (22). The skip grab (10) is designed to collect the stone/ rocks/ pebbles and other sediments along with all type of trash/ debris during every cleaning cycle. The skip grab (10) structure made up of straight curved shaped plates having concavely arranged skip teeth (11). Firstly the skip grab (10) will collect stones and other sediments form the floor of dam and after that the skip teeth (11) are engaged with the vertical bars of the trash racks (21) in the locking position to collect the debris/ trash/ sediment etc. by combing mechanism and hold the debris/ trash/ sediment etcby straining the water from the collected debris. Furthermore, the close type skip grab (10) is designed to collect more than 1 tons trash during a single cleaning cycle. In the preferred, embodiment the grab is pulled up by operating the main arm cylinders and lifting the main arm (7) up, thus in first instanceitcollects stone and sediments from the floor of the dam and after that its teeth (11) effectively comb the trash bars and all the sediments/ trash and debris is collected inside the skip grab (10). This trash and debris are taken up afterclosing the flap (19) using motors and lock the entire debris which is alreadycollected and contained insidethe skip grab (10).

The present invention has ability to do the task of deep trash and sediment cleaning where high water flow and elevated pressure are crucial parameter for the successful operation in the whole system. The skip grab (10) have flap (19) arrangement to securely grab the trash and sediment inside and the water flow is not affected at the deep inside trash rack (21) due to specific mesh like arrangement of the skip grab (10). The specific arrangement of vertically disposed plates provides free movement to the water in side deep area though it firmly grabs the trashes inside it. The object of efficient and fast trash removal from deep inside water is served with the help of strong establishment means, counter weight block (5), arrangement of main arm (7) and telescopic boom (11) hinged with each other. It is pertaining to note that heavy flow of water leads to heavy turbulence in the system that can obstruct the working or prominent chances of accident. The present system provides unique solution to the problem of efficient and fast trash and sedimentation cleaning from deep water.

The present system can be used in any other water body where they want to remove trash and sedimentation from the deep water system. Although the present invention has been specifically described with inter- alia arrangement of all essential components, it should be understood that variations in the preferred embodiment could be achieved by a person skilled in the art without departing from the spirit of the invention. It is also to be understood that the present invention is given with the understanding that this invention is intended only to be illustrations without serving as a limitation on the scope of the invention as defined in the claims. List of reference numerals:

1. Main Frame

2. Wheel Frame

3. Wheels

4. Longitudinal drive 5. Counter weight

6. Debris collection trolley

7. Main arm

8. Single piece boom

9. Main arm hydraulic cylinder 9A. Boom in-out hydraulic cylinder

10. Skip grab

11. Skip grab teeth

12. Hand rail

13. Hydraulic power pack 14. Hydraulic power pack cabin

15. Electrical control panel

16. Operator cabin

17. Fabricated rail track

18. Steel beam and steel plate structure