System Architecture
PROJECT and INSTALLATION STRUCTURES
System Architecture
With all the work needed to make plans into a reality, the organisational dynamics of any project benefits vastly from planning and responsive handling. Today's successful project is also the template for the next project. So, a language and logic of reference are essential. We distinguish between Project and Installation as follows.
Building a Power Plant - the Project
A Built Power Plant - the Installation
The Value of a Project
It is vital to have a Project Structure where constituent parts can be easily linked and referenced. They can then readily be modified, added to, developed anew, or re-used later or elsewhere. With a clear project structure, such information is also an asset and resource that can be recorded and built up into a lasting library. This can be made available to others in an academic or commercially accessible form. The options and potentials are manifold. The savings and economies are real, they should not be missed out.
To Repeat;-
How the constituent parts of an installation are connected forms a structure, and we can call the architecture of that installation its System. The physical whole, the units, embodied by the System comprise the actual Installation. Getting that installation together is the Project.
System Parts and Feedback
Power is generatable and energy is transferable, in endless forms and ways. There are many different permutations and possibilities, all of which are constrained by the use intended and the local conditions available. The boundaries and distinctions between units in an installation can be difficult to separate organisationally if units are hybridised or combined. The management requirements of subsystems may therefore overlap on the ground in a physical way that has requirements that organisationally are different when viewed as an overall project. There is interaction between parts of the system that directly affect different teams in what becomes a feedback loop. All feedback in both project and installation is important because it has strong potential. It is an important thing and we need to know about it.
SYSTEM and INSTALLATION
Individual parts of the system;- its generator, its linkage and other units can be swapped or adapted to suit local conditions.
We have framed the system and also the installation into 4 parts;-
Anchor
Anchor : in what form and how you fix the energy conversion drive;- so, it could be a frame, a scaffold type rig, it could be fixed by steel hausers to the sides of a huge mill race, weighted down by heavy caissons, stuck to the back of a large boat, glued to the wall of a pier, attached to an overhanging cliff, cradled by an overhanging crane. The situations and fixings needed are very many indeed.
An exciting, new, in-house concept is the development of dynamic tuned anchoring. We will say more of this in future. It has huge significance.
Conversion Unit
Conversion Unit : this is the module that collects, harnesses and converts the energy from, say, mechanical, { water, air, solid } in motion, to another form, that could be electricity. It could be chemical, magnetic or mechanical in another form, it could be in a potential or stored form, as a wound up weighted pendulum system or a flywheel. Again there are many scenarios possible. The pocketed water conveyor we shall introduce also has air-driven, solids-driven and statics-driven analogues.
Generator
Generator : after the initial harnessing of power, the generator used can be;- away from, close to, or even within the conversion unit. This practical consideration has to satisfy local conditions. What is available locally ? What can be fitted on site ? Does some available piece of kit need to be modified and used ? These questions don’t limit or exclusively identify the conversion unit, so fundamentally they are only a subsystem or module within the overall installation.
FEED
Feed : energy is needed continuously, intermittently at different rates, or in different forms. This module of the system deals with transformation, storage, and relay factors on their own merits. Delivering power from flowing water into electricity along a wire has to satisfy exactly what and how it is wanted.
A CLOSER LOOK
At the interface between each module of this system, there are fundamental entities, quantities and statistics to consider more deeply. We next zoom in a level and take a more detailed look in the Vadyne Modules section...