Since I’m in the habit of being a Mathematician I can’t do anything that has a cost associated with it without simulating it computationally.
And so, since my cousin and I are building these large Vertical Axis wind turbines down in Costa Rica on the Lord’s dime (what’s worse than wasting my money? wasting Consecrated dollars of course!), I wanted to get a feel for what the turbines could do in a laminar flow, not that wind flow at 20-30 feet above ground is laminar… but as stated in paragraph one I’m a mathematician, reality is just a detail to be worked out.
I found this simulator online which allows you to upload any design to be tested.
And I produced these videos – note: the acqua color is an area of low pressure, pink is high pressure:
A PVC pipe cross section at 45 degrees makes up the outer blades.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVnopxl3wr8[/youtube]
A tri-blade VAWT.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnN5Cp05kWs[/youtube]
A tri-blade VAWT with baffling on the outside. The idea is to make the tri-blade more efficient by taking a turbulent flow and making it laminar close to the blades.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpdnDWY-TyA[/youtube]
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Tags: off grid, renewable energy, vertical axis wind turbine
That is so unbelievably super cool!!! Imagine if you could run the simulation such that the blades would actually spin. I hypothesize that the steady-state condition is quite a bit different than an instantaneous snapshot of the actual system. However, this is quite useful in determining the lift produced on a single blade of various configurations and angles to the wind. Man, I could play with this for hours! Cool find, sir!
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