Håkon H Francke
Chief Technology Officer (CTO), PhD
In my work I contribute to FDB’s progress of programming solutions, overseeing cybersecurity aspects, and hardware development. All for improving products and services provided by FDB.
In addition to technology-oriented activities, I customize and maintain tools for project management and HSE needs, develop and maintain procedures used as part of FDBs quality assurance program, and provide general IT support.
I received my MSc and PhD from Vannkraftlaboratoriet at NTNU – Trondheim in 2008 and 2012 respectively. The PhD topic was about the injection system or DiffCON which is now a product line at FDB.
Work Experiences
- Project engineer. CTO from 2012, Flow Design Bureau (2010 ->)
- PhD fellow at NTNU (2008-2010)
Education
- Various certifications as NI LabVIEW programmer (CLD, CLA)
- PhD thesis “Increasing Hydroturbine operation range and efficiencies using water injection in draft tubes” , NTNU, 2010
- Master of Science in Mech Eng, NTNU, 2008
Skills
Professional Skills
- LabVIEW
- Wrike (Project management SW)
- Autodesk Inventor
- Visio
Publications
- Francke, Finstad & Kjeldsen “Fundamental studies of swirling flows using pitot measurements”, 3rd IAHR International Meeting of the Workgroup on Cavitation and Dynamic Problems in Hydraulic Machinery and Systems, October 14-16, 2009, Brno, Czech Republic
Portfolio
HydroCord v3
Sira-Kvina & Statkraft, 2021-present
HydroCord is a holistic data acquisition and monitoring solution for hydro power plants. HydroCord ensures cyber security by utilizing a data diode in data transport from an air-gapped secure zone to a less secure zone. In the Sira-Kvina installation, several power plants are monitored using a range of data acquisition techniques, and all data is made available in a time series database that can be viewed in Grafana.
My role in HydroCord:
Lead of programming and responsible for hardware selection and usage.
HydroCord Vintage
(Grunnåi + Kvilldal)
Statkraft & Skagerak Energi, 2019-2020
HydroCord Vintage is an early version of the HydroCord system. The vintage version consists of an industrial cabinet with a real-time computer inside, and a touchscreen display for interfacing.
HydroCord Vintage was discontinued due to each installation requiring individual follow-up.
My role in HydroCord:
Lead of programming and responsible for hardware selection and usage.
HydroCord v2
Statkraft, 2012-2017
Early stage of HydroCord development.
Project partially funded by Statkraft.
My role in HydroCord:
Principal engineer and lead programmer.
DiffCon
FDB, 2012-2017
DiffCon shoots water tangentially into the exit pipe of Francis-turbines to stabilize the flow field, reduce pressure pulsations and loads on the shaft. By installing DiffCon, power plants can increase the operating range of Francis-turbines and especially utilize partial load operation.
My role in DiffCon:
Principal engineer on deliveries and deployment of solutions at Skibotn and Trollheim powerplants.
OOR
Aker Solutions, 2018-2022
Model based control of a hydropower plant as a sub-supplier to Aker Solutions (Hydro).
My role:
Main programmer of SW solutions, and controller HW responsible.
