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FishPath - Turbulent eddies to create paths for safe downstream migration for salmonids and eel past hydropower intakes

Fish on their downstream migration in rivers often encounter hydropower dams and intakes and tend to follow the main flow into the turbines where they may be injured or killed. While fine-meshed racks with a bypass can prevent fish from entering, they are costly and challenging to install and operate, particularly in larger systems.

Thus, many hydropower sites have no or poor protection systems for downstream migration. Despite recent promising results on fish guidance racks, there is a need to develop next generation systems that are cost-effective, easier to operate and provide high guidance efficiency at low power production losses.

Via their sensory systems, fish can detect turbulent circular currents (eddies) in the water, and respond to them either by avoiding or by exploiting them for swimming. In FishPath we will utilize these abilities to develop turbulent eddies based guiding system for salmon, trout and eel. To do so we first need to explore the behavior of eddies created by different objects (e.g. cylinders and hydrofoils) in the flow and how the fish species respond to different types of eddies. 

In this project SINTEF Energy will conduct detailed numerical studies of turbulent eddies, to investigate how this influence fish migration. 

Find out more on the project website, (project led by NINA).

Main partners:


This is a Knowledge-building Project for Industry financed by the Research Council of Norway.


 

Key facts

Project duration

2021 - 2026

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