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distance between towers
By oregon wind, Section Wind Posted on Tue Jul 29th, 2008 at 04:16:38 AM MST
Distance between towers

I will be installing two turbines fairly close to each other for testing purposes in the same wind.
Does anyone have any feed back on how far apart the two towers should be to prevent the turbines from affecting each other?
The turbines will be side by side facing the direction of the wind.
The turbines sizes will be 13' But in the future might be as large as 17' each.
Thanks!

distance between towers | 10 comments (10 topical, 0 editorial)

Re: distance between towers (3.00 / 0) (#1)
by Flux on Tue Jul 29th, 2008 at 12:41:07 AM MST
(User Info)

I have never seen any figures but I suspect if you are two rotor diameters apart it will be ok. Say 35ft to cover your later diameters.

For comparison on a good clean site away from turbulence you may get a good comparison. On a typical not so good site, lower down, the differences may be significant. Wind from other directions will be useless for comparison.

Flux

Re: distance between towers (3.00 / 0) (#6)
by oregon wind on Tue Jul 29th, 2008 at 10:30:31 PM MST
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I think I understand the second part of your response.

To clarify the for comparison statement . . .
Both of these turbines will be on the top of a hill. The tower tops will be at the same elevation. The wind they will receive will 95% of the time come from the same direction, and the towers will be side by side facing this wind. Do you agree this is a good way to test different turbine output in the same wind?

Thanks for your time Flux!

[ Parent ]

Re: distance between towers (3.00 / 0) (#8)
by Flux on Wed Jul 30th, 2008 at 12:39:21 AM MST
(User Info)

Without elaborate monitoring equipment it is about the best you can do. If you compare average results rather than instantaneous peaks then it should give a good indication. It seems as though it is a reasonably clean turbulent free site. On a poor site the comparisons would be difficult.

If you find your results are repeatable on different days then you probably have a true comparison.

Flux

[ Parent ]

Re: distance between towers (3.00 / 0) (#2)
by Chagrin on Tue Jul 29th, 2008 at 10:56:08 AM MST
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I believe the rule of thumb is six times the rotor diameter, but that only applies to when one turbine is downwind of the other.

http://www.sandomenico.org/uploaded/photos/Library/energy_windmills_copenhagen.jpg
http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/environment/assets/energy_windmills_california.jpg

Heck, these are nearly on top of each other.

Re: distance between towers (3.00 / 0) (#3)
by JW1111 on Tue Jul 29th, 2008 at 04:48:34 PM MST
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I have three that have been up for a while and from what I have seen it depends on how fast they spin. The faster they spin the further apart they need to be. I had two of them too close (12') and I had to move one. They would push each other away from each other so that neither would face directly into the wind. (they spun in oposite directions) And if the wind was directly in line than the first one would interfere with the one behind it and it would get dirty air. I have 4 foot mills and I have spaced them about 30 feet apart and still find some interference but it is not bad at that distance. But if you are cramped for space you might not have a choice.

Re: distance between towers (3.00 / 0) (#7)
by oregon wind on Tue Jul 29th, 2008 at 10:35:34 PM MST
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Thanks for your response!

If I understand you correctly, your turbines are 4 feet in diameter, and at one point they were only 12 feet apart. At this distance they affected each other.

I wonder if it were 13 foot turbines 36 feet apart if this would be an issue since they are side by side in the wind, and spin much slower than the smaller 4 foot turbines.

[ Parent ]

Re: distance between towers (3.00 / 0) (#4)
by wpowokal on Tue Jul 29th, 2008 at 06:33:37 PM MST
(User Info)

How about far enough apart so if one should fall it does not hit the other.

allan down under
A life lived in fear is a life half lived.

Re: distance between towers (3.00 / 0) (#5)
by JW1111 on Tue Jul 29th, 2008 at 07:27:03 PM MST
(User Info)

Oh yeah, that too. One advantage to having them close together is that they can share ancors. But if they come down it could be ugly. Here is a picture of my turbines, the upper picture after they were moved, the lower picture when they were too close together.
http://victoriacreek.net/default.aspx

[ Parent ]

Re: distance between towers (3.00 / 0) (#9)
by Tritium on Wed Jul 30th, 2008 at 02:21:43 PM MST
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Wouldn't it make more sense to put turbines on slightly different height towers rather than try to space them further apart if they are already in place?

Thurmond

Re: distance between towers (3.00 / 0) (#10)
by Jerry on Wed Jul 30th, 2008 at 10:33:16 PM MST
(User Info) http://www.dplusv.com/Photo-03.html

This is an intresting topic. Slightly over one year ago I had 14 small 4 ft wind generators on the flate roof on my car stereo store.

The roof area is aproximetly 50 ft X 60 ft. I use a 4 ft tail boom with wind vane.

I posisioned them so they were no closer than 2 ft apart if 2 tail boom/vane were pointed at each other (turbulant wind).

No matter how low of wind from cutin all the way up to 80mph plus, they all flew in formation. Like a flock of geese and never bothered each other.

At the time this groups concensis was that theyed be all over the place and not get along.

There was a SW AIR403 (46"), Lakota 7ft, my DIY 5 ft and the rest all my DIY 4ft.

If you don't mind loading a bunch of pictures, you can see the by clicking on airheads. The wind gennies on the roof of The Audio Source are at the end of the pics.

Shortly after the fire last July I removed all the wind gennies for fire damage roof repair.

I hope to start putiing the group back up. At times I would see over 5 KW comming in from that flock of wind machines. Dang I realy miss'm.

JK TAS Jerry

Airheads Page

[ Parent ]

distance between towers | 10 comments (10 topical, 0 editorial)

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