Stevens' Engineers Without Borders student chapter was featured in the December newsletter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) North Jersey Branch:
Examples of types of challenging and inspiring projects that are taken on by EWB chapters can be found locally at the Stevens and NJIT student chapters. EWBSIT is currently in the process of finalizing
the design for a micro-hydro electric generator, to be constructed in Jarabacoa,
Dominican Republic. The Jarabacoa community of El Dulce includes sixtyfive
homes and one schoolhouse that currently have no source of electricity.
Together with the Obra Social Salesiana (OSS), a local NGO, EWB-SIT is working
to alleviate this problem by bring electrical power to the community.
EWB-SIT has already sent several
students to the Jarabacoa to meet
with the community and an engineer,
who is an expert at designing micro
hydroelectric systems in the area.
While in the community, the EWBSIT
team scouted a location for the
systems and assessed the feasibility
of providing adequate power. After
the assessment trip, a feasibility
study was conducted on the chosen
system location to determine the
characteristics of the water source,
survey the surrounding land, and
determine the potential power output.
The Stevens team worked with the OSS
and local engineers to create a design
for the system components, which
include: intake, penstock, powerhouse,
turbine-generator, and control system.
The EWB-SIT team has reached 80% of
their fundraising goals for this project
and currently they are finalizing design
calculations so that a power generating
turbine can be selected and ordered
for the community. After the turbine
is ordered a project team will travel to
Jarabacoa to install the equipment and
bring electricity to a community for
the first time. For their next challenge
the Stevens chapter is working on an
application for a future community
center/clinic in a community that is
neighboring Jarabacoa.
Download the ASCE newletter (PDF) to read the full article.
