- Original Poster
- #1
Some people buy a sports car as a midlife crisis. I have chosen a much more mad thing to do.
I have invented and built the first proof of principal machine. It is 6m high 4m wide and sitting in a scrap yard in Rotherham. The design differs from the normal 3 bladed type seen all over the place in that it is a large cowl which channels the wind down to director vanes that induce a spin in the wind. This spinning wind is then taken into the center and back up and out of the back.
At the point where the spinning air comes into the center there is a turbine. A centrifugal turbine if you wish to get technical. This has a vertical axis and is smaller than would be required by the 3 bladed ones.
When you see the existing 3 bladed wind turbines and a third of them are not working it is because they are devils for maintenance trouble. The blades, because they are in compression when at the top of the revolution and extension at the bottom, crack all the time. The gear box taking a very low RPM high torque drive to a high RPM dynamo is also asking for trouble. Even the pillar the thing is on has a nasty habit of cracking.
When any of these things happen the repair crew needs to work at 100m up in a windy location. And all the not working ones in the country need doing at the same time before the wind returns.
My design does not suffer from this as the vertical axis makes most of the trouble go away. The turbine is just above the heads of the workers and can be lowered and returned in a couple of hours. The dynamo is on the floor within the shed like base of the unit. If it is windy when you want to repair the system that is not a problem as there are shutters which can be closed on the outside of the cowl.
The cowl can be rotated to face the wind to catch as much as possible in low winds and turned away a bit if the wind is too strong. There is thus no problem of not being able to generate electricity in high winds which is yet another trouble with the 3 bladed design.
I would love to present detailed data as to the working output of the system with wind speed vs power etc. However, this has to be the calmest summer ever, and I am waiting for a wind above 10mph!! Realistically whilst small flurries of wind at about 6mph have caused it to turn with no load on it at least 20mph wind would be required for meaningful power output.
Hopefully this will produce power at a cost well below the cost of electricity from the grid.
OK, I have possibly solved the global warming thing and have the patent on the system that will produce everybody's power in 10 years time. So, given I am just a plumber what the hell do I do next?
I have invented and built the first proof of principal machine. It is 6m high 4m wide and sitting in a scrap yard in Rotherham. The design differs from the normal 3 bladed type seen all over the place in that it is a large cowl which channels the wind down to director vanes that induce a spin in the wind. This spinning wind is then taken into the center and back up and out of the back.
At the point where the spinning air comes into the center there is a turbine. A centrifugal turbine if you wish to get technical. This has a vertical axis and is smaller than would be required by the 3 bladed ones.
When you see the existing 3 bladed wind turbines and a third of them are not working it is because they are devils for maintenance trouble. The blades, because they are in compression when at the top of the revolution and extension at the bottom, crack all the time. The gear box taking a very low RPM high torque drive to a high RPM dynamo is also asking for trouble. Even the pillar the thing is on has a nasty habit of cracking.
When any of these things happen the repair crew needs to work at 100m up in a windy location. And all the not working ones in the country need doing at the same time before the wind returns.
My design does not suffer from this as the vertical axis makes most of the trouble go away. The turbine is just above the heads of the workers and can be lowered and returned in a couple of hours. The dynamo is on the floor within the shed like base of the unit. If it is windy when you want to repair the system that is not a problem as there are shutters which can be closed on the outside of the cowl.
The cowl can be rotated to face the wind to catch as much as possible in low winds and turned away a bit if the wind is too strong. There is thus no problem of not being able to generate electricity in high winds which is yet another trouble with the 3 bladed design.
I would love to present detailed data as to the working output of the system with wind speed vs power etc. However, this has to be the calmest summer ever, and I am waiting for a wind above 10mph!! Realistically whilst small flurries of wind at about 6mph have caused it to turn with no load on it at least 20mph wind would be required for meaningful power output.
Hopefully this will produce power at a cost well below the cost of electricity from the grid.
OK, I have possibly solved the global warming thing and have the patent on the system that will produce everybody's power in 10 years time. So, given I am just a plumber what the hell do I do next?
Last edited:
