New Bladeless Design for Wind Energy

[Jeff Rosenbury]

@Jimster41
I wonder why this rule is so?

As a guess I would think the rotating blades might cause a visual effect that looks similar to twinkling in low light conditions. This might mislead pilots into thinking the rotors are much farther away than they really are. With strong lights this would be mitigated, at least at close range where it matters.

 

[rollingstein]

As a guess I would think the rotating blades might cause a visual effect that looks similar to twinkling in low light conditions. This might mislead pilots into thinking the rotors are much farther away than they really are. With strong lights this would be mitigated, at least at close range where it matters.

Perhaps what we need is blade-tip integral lights. That would let them keep a low intensity (to not bother locals) as well as avoid the confusing twinkling effect.

In fact, I suspect you could get a nice, steady ring like effect due to the rotation.

Probably would have to be incorporated by the manufacturer during blade design to avoid any aerodynamic losses.

 

[Jimster41]

Perhaps what we need is blade-tip integral lights. That would let them keep a low intensity (to not bother locals) as well as avoid the confusing twinkling effect.

In fact, I suspect you could get a nice, steady ring like effect due to the rotation.

Probably would have to be incorporated by the manufacturer during blade design to avoid any aerodynamic losses.

maybe passive solar?

It is ironic how much effort goes in protecting Chimneys etc. from the effects of vortex shedding. All those strakes and tuned mass dampers etc.

I think people are underestimating the difficulty in scaling this up. Sure you can easily anchor a 20 feet fiberglass pole and allow it to sway but now you make that 60 feet tall and add the weight of the equipment etc, and you are looking at some very serious anchoring and stiffness / buckling issues.

If the promoters of the idea have thought these issues through it isn't clear from the stuff on their website at least.

I was thinking that all the electronics were near the ground. The stiffness and shape of the pole only has to solve the problem of motion under vortex development and shedding, durably?

 

[Jimster41]

I was wondering about how you would "feather" these things to dump wind in a storm for instance. And it occurred to me they could practically be flags, or sails?

 

[Jeff Rosenbury]

I was thinking that all the electronics were near the ground. The stiffness and shape of the pole only has to solve the problem of motion under vortex development and shedding, durably?

That might work as long as the electronics package keeps working and absorbing the energy. But when the electronics are shut down/broken, the pole is just another pole and needs to survive on its own.

 

[Jimster41]

That might work as long as the electronics package keeps working and absorbing the energy. But when the electronics are shut down/broken, the pole is just another pole and needs to survive on its own.

yeah, fair enough. That's what got me wondering about "soft" designs. Just a thin rubber mast up which you could run a stiff curved sail designed to create and dump vortices. Or a sail that folds at a pressure limit.

 

[zoobyshoe]

yeah, fair enough. That's what got me wondering about "soft" designs. Just a thin rubber mast up which you could run a stiff curved sail designed to create and dump vortices. Or a sail that folds at a pressure limit.

There's this other non-rotary design out there:

http://www.gizmag.com/saphonian-bladeless-wind-turbine/24890/

 

[nsaspook]

Seems full of hot air.
http://www.kcet.org/news/redefine/rewire/wind/bladeless-wind-turbine-too-good-to-be-true.html

 

[Jimster41]

Found this, I can't see the figures, sounds like Vortex.

http://www.google.com/patents/WO2012142563A1?cl=en

Pretty recent application... Northeastern Universtity, sleepers man, watch out.

 

[Jimster41]

Seems full of hot air.
http://www.kcet.org/news/redefine/rewire/wind/bladeless-wind-turbine-too-good-to-be-true.html

Yeah, doesn't seem to improve on the main complexity issue, at least not in a way that would appear to offset some amount of efficiency hit.

 

[jim hardy]

Seems full of hot air.
http://www.kcet.org/news/redefine/rewire/wind/bladeless-wind-turbine-too-good-to-be-true.html

Some folks harvest wind, others harvest investors.

 

[mfb]

Another concept
They all don't look very efficient. And this one even needs water.

 

[jim hardy]

Another concept
They all don't look very efficient. And this one even needs water.

from their link:

A mixture of 30% ethanol and 70% demineralized water appeared to be the most suitable spraying liquid.

It'll be perpetual happy hour downwind ! Got juniper ?

 

[RaulTheUCSCSlug]

Won't the alternator need some maintenance? I'm also curious to see how these structures hold up to rain. They seem very interesting, and wouldn't mind doing a DIY one in my backyard this summer for fun!

 

[Thermo]

Good news for birds.

 

[Jimster41]

Reminds me of that movie "Those Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machines".

Couple of thoughts keep recurring while reflecting on this thread.

Why has't nature come up with something as efficient as the rotating airfoil design? Lots of obvious answers follow on but it seems like an interesting way of thinking about the problem; to step back and look at it from a wider systems perspective.

How does per unit efficiency interact with system efficiency "footprint" in all relevant dimensions: size, cost of material, cost of construction, efficiencies of scale, durability and cost of maintenance over time, re-usability, quality of energy relative to use requirement, etc, etc? I would guess there are paradigms/tools for guesstimating. I am sure someone somewhere at some AE company has thought long and hard about how to enumerate those and get at some sensitivity matrix.

Or maybe it's a problem of identifying the key constraint to empirical discovery across what are actually impenetrably complex permutations. My guess is that the generator/alternator/storage mechanism is that. If someone could design a very cheap, incrementally scalable electric, or chemical, or electrochemical (or all of the above) energy converter that was not necessarily dependent on smooth high quality rotating mechanical energy, but more on any mechanical energy, natural mechanical noise, even if it was not terrifically efficient, then the question of how to "best" couple it to energy sources found in nature could be left as open as it probably should be.

The "compression engine" mentioned above is very interesting in this way.

 

[HyperTechno]

These too are bladeless wind electricity generators. What kind of mechanism is used here? That should be different from what mechanism used on pole generators.

 

[Jeff Rosenbury]

I like the one that looks like a cell phone. I assume it's a version of mfb's electrostatic generator.

I like it because it could be placed in fields and potentially used to irrigate crops or possibly in a water park as an artistic feature. In the southwest it might be used as a house cooler. It looks like it could be a nice, dual use generator.

 

[Dvorak]

In the long term, this is the future of wind power. They are cheap and look nice. They work similarly to trees swaying in the breeze which means they are environmentally sound.

In the short term, no numbers means all hype. The claim of no moving parts is unrealistic. The poles are supposed to vibrate, which means motion. Further vibrational movement is typically more damaging to equipment than circular movement. Permanent magnets lose magnetism when moved through fields repeatedly, and electromagnets need power. Their performance in storm conditions wasn't mentioned which can't be a good sign.

There are solutions to all these problems, but since the promoter didn't address them, I'm guessing he hasn't found them yet.

I hope they can get them to work, but I doubt they can.

This bladeless windmill works by movement of the pole due to the wind, then it is supposed to be flexible. What do you think is the material it will be made of? Secondly by the picture from the site we can know that it has less surface area, so the velocity of wind must be really high to make this windmill wag like the trees. Makes no sound is impossible, it is also probable that this new kind of windmill will make more sound than the one used presently, because the whole pole oscillates making its material move to and fro thus creating vibrations in the air.

 

[HyperTechno]

View attachment 85193 View attachment 85192 View attachment 85191
These too are bladeless wind electricity generators. What kind of mechanism is used here? That should be different from what mechanism used on pole generators.

Can someone please explain the mechanism of the wind electric generators that I've shown in my previous reply?

 

[willem2]

Can someone please explain the mechanism of the wind electric generators that I've shown in my previous reply?

That would be a lot easier to do from a link than from just a photograph.
Anyway, the second and third photograph have already been discussed here (saphon and ewicon)

 

[HyperTechno]

Ok, I'll read that. Thanks.

 

[mfb]

The first one is a conventional turbine, just floating in the air. I don't remember which company made that illustration.

 

[HyperTechno]

The first one is a conventional turbine, just floating in the air. I don't remember which company made that illustration.

I didn't notice the small blades inside it... thought it too is a bladeless one. And the second one which looks like some kind of a satellite antennae?