Surge Tank Research in Austria and Norway

Abstract

Modern high-head hydropower plants, and especially pumped storage plants (PSP), are designed with increasing high water discharge and higher requirements to flexible operation. To improve the hydraulic performance and allow for more flexible operation, research on surge tank design is conducted in Norway and Austria. A cooperation is established, and this work presents some recent findings. Two types of surge tanks are discussed, the throttled chamber surge tanks (TCST) of Austria, and the air cushion surge tanks (ACST) of Norway. Both represent the current state-of-the-art in these countries. For the TCST, the challenges of long chambers is given special attention.