Wing flying upwind mpg

[windstuffnow]

  Here is a small mpg file that shows the Lenz turbine wing flying up wind.  Its in front of a shop fan thats making a wind of around 7 mph.

  It starts out where I stop it at the 180 and simply let it go from there.  For some reason the mpg picked up a glitch and it looks like the wing stopped at the 45, actually it doesn't.

  The wind is comming from the right side... its about 1mb and took me 9 minutes to up load it, those like me with slow connections be patient...

http://www.otherpower.com/images/scimages/15/upwind_wing.mpg

  .

 

[bob g]

Ed:

very cool, nice video!

bob g

[rotornuts]

I'm Impressed Ed, looks like it's doing work all the way around(no stall)unless it's coasting through a dead spot. I put it on repeat and watch it go around for awhile.

Mike

[electrondady1]

ed, at first i wasn't shure what you were trying to demonstrate. untill i realized the wind was from the right. thats pretty cool!  from a dead stop the single wing can pull itself into the wind like that. lets say your hand is at 0 deg. i can understand how it gets from 0 to 90(closest to camera). but from 90 to 180 were is the energy coming from?

[ghurd]

Nice Ed!

Not sure what I am supposed to be most impressed with.

It looks kind of heavy, but it still got a LOT more speed in 1 revolution than I expected!

G-

[windstuffnow]

  I finally broke down and purchased an inexpensive mini DV for small demo's like this.  I thought it may help to see and understand some of the odd stuff I do.

  There is a "dead spot" that it carries through without any problems.  It happens at the transition point where the wing is changing angles to the wind on the back side.  There is no measurable resistance in that area.  This occurs for around 20 degrees just before the 90.  If you place the wing in that area it will simply sit there.  With the other wings in place there aren't any dead spots.

  I wanted to show the acceleration of the single wing test but the file size was extreemly large.  I stopped it twice like that and let it go on the third round.  When I stopped it, being completly out of balance with only one wing in place the table its mounted on was shaking quite violently.  

  I spent alot of time building up a dozen or so different machines to experiment with the up wind side over the years.  I still bet there is a better way to do it, although, I'm quite happy with the results with this one.  

  I'd like to share some other data that I've worked out but now isn't the right time for that.  When all the paper work and experimentation is complete I'll be posting it on my site.

.

  As the wing speeds up the lift is increased considerably, not only removing upwind resistance but adding to the overall power of the machine.

 

[andrewdj]

Ed;  that is very interesting.  You got me so interested that i'm in the process of building a test stand to do the best wind tunnel testing I can and try out different blade shapes, angles and variations.   My head is full of questions.

Looking at the video, it "seems" that the tail of the wing is near the circumfrence of the disk.  In an earlier post it seemed to me that you indicated that you ended up with about 9 degrees with (the tail closer to the axis than perpendicular or something like that.  I may have misunderstood that completely.  Is the angle in the video close to the angle you ended up with ?   And i'm sure you tried various angles.   How did it affect the thrust on the upwind side and downwind side ?

Great work.

Please keep it up.

[windstuffnow]

  Hi andrewdj,

    it is at 9 degrees.  If you draw a straight line from the center to the wing then draw a line that is 99 degrees to that line you have it. ( Thats  99 degrees on the trailing edge side of the line )  Zero pointing toward the outer diameter and 180 at the center.  It looks odd because your looking at the wing shape and the round disc. The 9 degrees is actually off the flat of the wing.

.

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

Hi, Ed.

Let's see if I've got the dimensions right:

• The leading edge form is a 6 3/4 inch (diameter) semicircle.
  
• The wing skin is 14.5 inches long.
  
• The wing skin wraps the semicircle and then extends straight for about 3/32" less than four inches further to form a trailing edge.
  
• The wing (one of three) is supported at the center of the semicircle by an arm from the central shaft.
  
• The wing's trailing edge makes an angle of 99 degrees with the support arm - i.e. 9 degrees more than a right angle.  This puts the trailing edge slightly farther from the central shaft than the line where the straight and curved sections join.
  
• (The angle is critical for efficiency, which is significantly better than a sandia savonius of the same cross-section if this thing is tuned right.  The Sandia Savonius patent claim 37% when optimally loaded while you're claiming about 36.5% average over a considerable wind speed range without optimized loading.)
  
• The mill is 3' across, putting the outside of the semicircle at 1 1/2 feet and the joint between the support arm and the center of the leading-edge form's semicircle about 14 5/8 inch from the central shaft.
  
• The wings are about 4 feet tall.
  
  

Right?

[windstuffnow]

  Yea, everything sounds correct with the exception that the trailing edge should be 9 degrees toward the center.

  .

[nothing to lose]

Hey Ed,

 I have a really dumb question I think, who says there are no dumb questions?

Ok your wing is pulling itself INTO the wind under it's own power right. So what would happen if a wing was mounted on each side of a car? Mounted in reverse so they BOTH want to pull forward into the wind? Not to create power, just to sort of PULL the car down the road using the wind which is a resistance fighting to hold you back.

Ya, I know it won't run the car itself of course, I am just thinking of once say 50mph is hit if the wings are pulling forward into that wind 50mph wind if less power would be needed to maintian that speed then. Maybe helping to increase the range of an electric by using less power to maintian a set speed.

Or say if you blocked off the drag side and just let the lift side pull into the wind, would you be able to gain more power for charging batteries on the go without using more fuel to do it.

I know probably a stupid idea, but my thought is lift raises tons of aircraft by pulling it upwards, why can't we turn the lift on it's side and pull forwards instead of upwards? Ever seen an aircraft takeoff without power? I have, I think it was a cessna, hard winds with an incomming storm and the plane was not chained down. It lifted, floated awhile, then crashed to one side. I also wondered, if the wings had been vertical how fast would that plane have taxied compared to horizontal and lifting?

No-one seemed to know why the plane was not fastened down as it should have been, we had just landed a bit before and ours was

As much as I like to fly someday I should get a liscence myself and my own plane I geuss, or build an ultralight at least.