Aerobine! - Windmill VAWT

Interesting... is that like a conventional Savonius or does it use 'lift' too? (The conventional Savonius has the two halves overlapping so the air spills from one to the other).

I've never really understood how those damn VAWTs with vertical blades work ..the explanations usually vector diagrams with pseudo random vectors drawn all over the place which should give purely radial forces or such a small tangential component they should barely work... probably either :-
a) I'm thick..
b) The writers aren't very good at explaining it.
c) All of the above.

(Maybe one of the clever mathsy guys can expain to a cat with a vector diagram that makes sense and a couple of simple lines and maybe a sardine or two?)

Del

"The conventional Savonius has the two halves overlapping so the air spills from one to the other"...........

Also, if the center was opened for air flow it wouldn't run backwards the way it is doing. It's a great visual design for sure and could be used to catch the eyes of passers-by (for advertising?)

While i agree that opening the center would improve the efficiency,

his design was not spinning backwards. It appeared to,

due to aliasing of the video system.

It was probably just below 1800 rpm (30Hz), or

half of the field rate (60Hz) for the video.

This would lead to the "wagon wheel" effect seen in old westerns.

Nice design, easily fabricated.

How much power did you get from it?

What's the wind speed in that video?

Thanks for the link. It was great to see your device, and I perused a few others too -- there is quite a range out there!

Thanks for your replies,

the wind speed in the video is aprox 25-30 KM/H

its not going backwards...its just the frame rate of my camera cannot keep up!

You can see when I first let go of it what way it spins.

I am no electrical engineer by any means but am learning a few things. I am playing around with a couple of different generator configurations. The fist design was to small...more copper and bigger magnets are needed.

I have a 70 foot tower that was donated to me and the project! This will be set up in the early spring and I will do some official data gathering in the next stage of the project.

I am yet to find a simple way to measure the mechanical output of this prototype...hummm...still scratching my head on that one.

Anyway...just thought I would crawl out from under my desk and let you know what I'm up to, and wish you all the best in 2008. Trying to think positive and focus on forward motion.

Mike

Congratualtions,

It's a nice design and simple to build.

You could use a car/truck alternator as power transformer to see the power output.

By changing the resistors that you use to consume the power you can look for the best rotor-wind speed relation.

Just post questions and evolutions like these.

Thanks for the link. Interesting vids there. You are suffering from your frame speed, the windier it sounds, the slower it goes.

Vertical Axis wind turbine.Let us know what power you get from it.

Jim

Here is a link to an intersting turbine, already installed on some buildings...

http://www.plentymag.com/features/2007/09/a_mighty_wind.php?display_results=1

I'd be interested in you guys opinion on the www.Venturiwind.com turbine.

It's different, and their logic seems good to me....

Jim

The words sound nice... but there isn't much real technical info to substantiate their claims.
The word Ventui seems a bit of a missnomer... I dunno it smacks a bit of build it first justify it second... I'm not saying it isnt more efficient... just that it isn't convincingly explained/demonstrated. ou could apply the same words to just about anything...

I'm a bit puzzled why they made the axis horizontal.

A vertical axis would have worked the same and made the construction much easier.

Don't they claim the force of the wind is harvested twice, once through the front propeller shape, and once through the rear? I imagine it to be like two normal bladed turbine, running in parallel, with the blade-ends joined in a loop.

Anyway Gwen.... I think you're closest, nip and ask them will you?

Jim

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/5042154.stm

Check out this design, used here as a gimmick really but have a search around, they are being touted as the future in urban turbines as they work well in turbulent wind conditions.

'they work well in turbulent wind conditions.'

I wonder why it's shown on top of a 50 foot pole then?

Jim