Gravitational Vortex Power Demo

I'm not familiar with the "fish pass" feature and what it is intended to do. I guess it has to do with the important problem of fish kill at cooling water intakes. You say that the flow through the bottom (axial) hole decreases with the addition of a side (radial) hole, which I presume is where the fish would escape the vortex. You noticed that the flow rate through the side hole surpasses the axial flow, and conclude that the setup would not work. But even if the axial flow is decreased by the addition of the side hole, if you add the axial turbine to boost the axial flow it might work.

The addition of a passive rotatable axial turbine boosts axial flow in much the same way as the Blackbird Land Yacht. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbird_%28land_yacht%29

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The fish pass in underneath the turbine housing and lets fish pass upstream through the turbine housing. (it is close to the circular wall of the housing.

As far as I understand, the plants are low head hydroelectricity plants that use head from 5 ft to about 13 ft. (Typical disused old mill sites in Europe). It is low head so efficiency takes a hit but if you combine the benefits of integrated fish pass, (under the housing) very good oxygenation of the exit water and cheaper turbine, inlet grid, and maintenance costs and simpler construction, you come out ahead in the long run. The alternative "fish ladder" is really a fish buffet for everything from bears to seals to otters to herons and eagles depending on where you live.

".. videos of guys swirling water in pop bottles and the water streams out much quicker.."

I think that is due to the fact air can enter into the bottle (through the center).

Doing the same experiment with a hole in the bottle shows the vortex actually slows the flow down.

Makerfaire went pretty well. An electrical engineer told me that running the 12 volt bilge pump from the 15 watt solar panel should present no problems. (I thought there would be brown out issues or burnout issues as the sun got weaker in the evening and it provided enough power to heat up the windings but not enough to turn the motor). He said it should just start up again in the morning when the sun gets high enough. Lots of people liked it. Second day I was telling people I wanted to put a stick woman made from tiewire, (A gyrating go go dancer) on top. But a guy on a bicycle would be acceptable too....... I guess.

I just got as far as twisting the tiewire and adding on a rotating coffee cup. Pretty pathetic. GF would not even let me draw a racy figure on the coffee cup.

Any way Nancy the welder in the next booth refused to make any type of female shape for my project either. Go figure!

I definitely think a small vortex powering a garden feature has potential. Reason is that torque just builds up and builds up until the thing moves and also the "turbine" you make can be a total piece of crap and it will still work.