Yakubu Khartum Abubakar, Binfa Bongfa, Shaibu Muhammed, Aliyu Abdullahi, Joseph Stephen Onimisi, Usman Bashir

Hydropower plant complex structure offers challenges to college students in efficiently understanding the working principles of hydropower plants. To overcome these complexities, a hydropower plant model with an impulse turbine was built to deepen students understanding of working principle of hydropower plants using locally sourced materials. Two experiments were conducted with the model, simulating two scenarios: when the valve is half-opened and when the valve is fully opened. To analyze the data derived from the experiments, a Python code was developed to interface with the primary data. The program produced secondary data that includes turbine effective head, flowrate, water pressure, and turbine output power. The study examined the relationship between the turbine effective head with the other parameters. The finding showed that the generator output power and water pressure grow with the turbine effective heads for the two cases in general. However, the growth of these parameters was higher for the half-opened case compared to the fully-opened case, except for the water flowrates and turbine shaft speed. The model proved to be a promising tool for conducting experiments concerning hydropower plants, which can help reinforce the theoretical knowledge gained in the classroom. Keywords: Hydropower plant, Impulse turbine, Experiments, Model, Effective head, College students 0150