Turbine Radar Interference

If you give us some details of your current interference problem we might be able to help.

I was reading a post about Solar Areo and their bladeless turbines and one of the advantages was the lack of radar interference because it was bladeless. Hence the reason for my question. See http://green.yahoo.com/blog/ecogeek/1366/solar-aero-s-bladeless-wind-turbine.html;_ylt=AkZfr3P9AS1w2XV6QRCagUKtV8cX for more information.

Let's see, maximum turbine blade tip height, oh, say 400 feet. Blades are produced from non-metals nowadays.

Airplanes don't fly that low unless they are crop dusting, wind farms aren't usually located near airports and Solar Aero looks like a scam to me.

Tesla's turbines depend upon friction of the fluid moving over disks. Thats it...no aerodynamic vanes, no angle of attack cups. They are normally used in water, fluids which are full of particles or slurry, and other similar applications. They don't work as well on breezes. I have heard they make excellent blood pumps because they don't damage blood cells. (source for that statement is the book on Tesla I read thirty years ago at a friend's house)

However rather than dwelling on the mechanism, this article concentrates on the power they can get from the wind. Their best scenario is to create power at the rate of twelve cents per kilowatt hour. This is not so good. There is a lot of statements in there...they are selling a lot of "sizzle', and not much bacon, but who knows...they may be on to something. The advantages may be there. Smarter people than me could say for sure. But statements like "close to the ground provides easier maintenance" strike me as suspect. More marketing and less "how to" than I would have liked.

I think somebody should just make some of these turbines, and see if they work. Anyway, here is a couple of links for people who have actually MADE these things.

This was all explained years ago, Popular Science had one in 1955.

Popular Science Article here...Page one

Page two

Page three

Oh sorry, that was me...I seemed to have forgotten to sign in...

doooh.

minor correction. Tesla actually said that it was Adhesion and Cohesion (not friction) which made his design work. There is a subtle difference.

Yes, he said that.

These clowns are only on to trying to scam someone! Trying to sell something they don't even have any test data on? Maybe they can find some green fools so more power to them but the only customers who would put up cash at this stage (without any testing) are definitely fools. Beating Betzs law is highly unlikely!

With all due respects to the knowledge of the respondents, all I want to know is whether turbines create some kind of radar interference or not. You are all so intent on dishing Aero's project that you forgot the question. Do I think that Aero's project is viable or not? I think it is an interesting project and like tacking a sailboat on the water, every move gets us closer to the finish (which is a viable and proven technology for providing economical power from the sun).

The US Department of Defense thinks so - they just stopped a project in Fossil, Oregon on just that grounds. As regards the Aero 'project', flogging a dead horse is neither commendable or worthwhile. There are paths that actually follow science and do not go against Betz's law in capturing the power of the sun.

Good answer. The article states that wind turbines DO interfere with aircraft landing radar and weather radar. It also states that there are ways around it, primary one being to upgrade to better radar systems. The primary benefit of doing this expensive upgrade is to allow the authors of the report to go forward and build more wind farms. The secondary benefit is that new and upgraded radar will provide all sorts of benefits, from more accurate storm reporting to more precise flight data.

The tesla system of wind power recovery would not have tip velocities high enough to trigger doppler radars "tornado detection", so if there is no radar implication, then there is no homeland security reason to resist installation of wind farms of that type.

So again, darned good answer to the original question.

Now if they can show the thing works - which seems to me highly unlikely - at least the Aero version.

Thanks. Sort of refuted my own first post I guess. Sort of?

That is called living and learning - something we all need to do every day!

Highly tevhnical terms such as '"should be capable of 10kW output with no problem," according to the inventor' are a tip off this thing is really not ready for prime time.

You will just have to make one. I made one years ago out of a stack of old scratched LP records. It didn't work very good, but that it worked at all struck me as very remarkable for a "proof of concept" toy. It actually turned in the prairie breeze!

This is a toy in which "gut feelings" should be discarded in favor of experimentation.