COSMOS helps analyze hydroelectric powerhouse design

Company James Bay Energy Corporation Industry Power Location Canada Product Used COSMOSM™ Type of Analysis Linear Static More Details

The Challenge
The James Bay Energy Corporation, builders of the La Grande hydroelectric project on the Laforge River in northern Quebec, needed to evaluate their powerhouse design.

The project includes the LA-1 powerhouse, with total generating capacity of 835 NW, housing six water powered turbines.

The Solution
Montreal-based engineering consultants Rosseau, Sauve, Warren, Inc., used COSMOSM in their evaluation of the powerhouse design. They modeled one unit of the powerhouse and gave special attention to load transfer to the foundation rock along with the stress and deformation occurring in the downstream wall.

The analysis showed that the penstock resists less than 20% of the lateral load, making it unnecessary to modify the stability criteria. Analysis of the rock pressures further verified the existing design methods.

Overall, the results provided valuable insight not only for the LA-1 structure, but the design stability criteria themselves. Rosseau, Sauve, Warren Inc. intend to use the additional design information gained from the analysis to improve the quality of future powerhouse designs.