Design of Hydroelectric Stations

The title of this paper, if given its broadest interpretation, describes a subject of such scope as to require a treatise for its adequate discussion. Actually, this scope is limited to certain comments on general problems connected with station layouts and substructure design for large units. In discussing the layouts, emphasis will be placed upon designing the form of the structure most efficiently for the functions it must serve and upon the effect on the design of the interdependence of many of the factors involved. Illustrations will be drawn from the projects of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which include fourteen powerhouses and additions to one, for a total of forty-two units with a capacity of about a million and a half kilowatts. Discussion will be directed particularly to low-head, propeller type installations of which TVA has built seven, six with Kaplan runners. The locations of TVA projects are shown on the map in Table 1.