Author Topic: Finally some data  (Read 2685 times)

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zenpi314

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Finally some data
« on: April 06, 2010, 06:55:08 PM »
I have been collecting windspeed and amps for the last couple of months. Every night I check the maximum windspeed for that day and the daily maximum amps of the doc Watson and record it. Here is a graph.





Does this look alright?

It seems that the number for the windspeed is a little more than half the amps I get. In other words, 20 mph gives me about 10 amps. Is that a reasonable amount. I live in a poor wind area and I am in the middle of a city, so the turbine is just above the roof top.

The turbine is an almost 7 footer of the otherpower design. You can read more about it at potpower dot com

Arno van Werven
« Last Edit: April 06, 2010, 06:55:08 PM by (unknown) »

GWatPE

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Re: Finally some data
« Reply #1 on: April 06, 2010, 10:38:08 PM »
The power output does not really follow the wind energy, but in a city location results would not be ideal.


For a doubling of the windspeed, the alternator should produce 8x the output power.  Your data suggests a linear relation, so for a doubling of the windspeed, the output power doubles.


The windmill could probably produce more power with better loading.


Gordon.


.

« Last Edit: April 06, 2010, 10:38:08 PM by GWatPE »

Flux

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Re: Finally some data
« Reply #2 on: April 07, 2010, 12:37:17 AM »
Very difficult to comment. We don't know the system voltage so the amps can't be related to power.


I can't see how you can realistically make much sense of peak wind speed against peak power.


Even having traces of wind speed and power on a continuous recorder doesn't give a good idea of performance, certainly not to the point where you can get a decent idea of the machines power curve.


At best it can only be comparative. In an urban site there is no real chance of anything like the machines capability on a good site, its likely to be way down.


Your chart seems to imply that you are doing quite well but the mean power will probably only be a tiny fraction of the peak. At least it is encouraging that you can get a curve that has a defined shape, I would have expected much more scatter from the quantities you are plotting. It seems likely that you have mainly wind from one direction or you have similar conditions from most directions. Most urban sites tend to only have useful wind from one direction and can be virtually useless in others.


Flux

« Last Edit: April 07, 2010, 12:37:17 AM by Flux »

zenpi314

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Re: Finally some data
« Reply #3 on: April 07, 2010, 04:26:22 PM »
I was very surprised to see the graph develop so neatly.

I also spent time writing down the current windspeed and the current amps (12 volt system by the way) but since the windspeed was most of the time so low that I could not get a very varied graph, and the max graph was shaping up so well, I keep going with that. I should do some more collecting of realtime data to get a more accurate representation. The wind is almost exclusively from the east (South Florida) and fairly constant (unfortunately at a very low speed).

I will update as soon as I have more datapoints.

Thanks for the reply.

Arno
« Last Edit: April 07, 2010, 04:26:22 PM by zenpi314 »

Ungrounded Lightning Rod

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Re: Finally some data
« Reply #4 on: April 07, 2010, 05:19:56 PM »
You'll only get a clean cube curve with an MPPT controller.  At the max power point (which occurs at the design TSR) the RPM and voltage go up with the wind speed and the torque and current with its square.  (And because the heating of the alternator goes with the square of the current and thus the FOURTH power of the wind speed, it's very important to have good furling and/or a current-limiting function in the controller if you're going to do MPPT on a mill.)


Into a resistive load you'll get something like a square curve, because the current will be proportional to the voltage due to the ohms-law .  But this will be skewed because the mismatched drag torque will make the TSR, and thus the angle of attack, and thus the blades' efficiency, vary with wind speed.  Efficiency drops with higher wind speed and the function is not linear.  It's driven by the aerodynamics of your blades and has pathologies as various regions of your blade surfaces stall.


In a battery charging system it gets even more complex, because the battery load holds the terminal voltage essentially constant (at the sum of the battery voltage and the diode drops), causing the induced voltage (and thus the RPM) to be proportional to a constant plus a linear function of the output current.  You get no current until cutin, after which the current ramps up on a steep curve looks similar to that of the resistive load case but displaced by the cutin speed.


If you look at your graph it looks like it is a rough fit for a straight line that intersects zero around 5MPH (probably your cutin speed) and bends down near the end (as your blade stalls and/or the mill furls).  Seems to me that's not unreasonable for a PMA/diodes/battery system.  So it wouldn't surprise me if your actual wind speed/charge current curve is similar to such a fit to this comparison-of-metered-peaks.

« Last Edit: April 07, 2010, 05:19:56 PM by Ungrounded Lightning Rod »

zenpi314

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Re: Finally some data
« Reply #5 on: April 07, 2010, 07:35:04 PM »
Thank you for the information.

I understood most of it (I think).

I realized that all these factors would make it rough to calculate what the output would be, therefore I have been trying to get a real-life handle on the output by tracking the info. I was hoping to keep track by running it into a computer with a microprocessor, but got kinda sidetracked. So now I'm doing it by hand. Flux might be right that taking the max windspeed of the day and the max amps of the day will give low quality data, although the low amount of scatter suggest otherwise. I'll continue with it and add a hopefully more reliable method.

Thanks again.

Arno

BTW I charge 12 volt batteries and my dumpload is a Hurd controlled Nichrome wire setup.
« Last Edit: April 07, 2010, 07:35:04 PM by zenpi314 »

Flux

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Re: Finally some data
« Reply #6 on: April 08, 2010, 07:20:56 AM »
I have had a look at your web site and I assume the comment about stainless steel discs is not correct. The figures for cut in just about confirm that it can't be stainless steel.


You look basically to have an alternator suited to 8ft or bigger and a low cut in speed.


With a 7ft prop I think you are hitting hard stall at the point where your curve levels off. I suspect that adding an ohm or so in the leads will improve things quite a lot unless you already have very high lead resistance for some reason.


Flux

« Last Edit: April 08, 2010, 07:20:56 AM by Flux »

zenpi314

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Re: Finally some data
« Reply #7 on: April 12, 2010, 08:52:19 PM »
Hi Flux,
Sorry for the late reply, but I just found the new board.
I bought the Flat Metal Wind Turbine parts Kit from otherpower. They mention them as steel.
Do the figures still look really weird?
Could you explain why it can't be stainless steel?
I do not mind losing power on the high end because I am really nervous about overspeeding and exploding blades. (urban and all)
I will experiment with adding some resistance, but am not sure if I will stick with it.
Thank you for all the help.
Arno

Ungrounded Lightning Rod

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Re: Finally some data
« Reply #8 on: April 12, 2010, 09:38:27 PM »
Could you explain why it can't be stainless steel?

Stainless steels either don't conduct magnetic flux or don't conduct it well.  You want to tie the backsides of the magnets together magnetically to keep the field strong in the gap between the rotors - thus you use ordinary steels there.

There are no magnetic monopoles (at least so far discovered) so the magnetic field lines make closed loops.  The more "air gap" (i.e. anything but magnet or easily-magnetized, high-saturation metal) the magnetic circuit must pass through, the weaker the field you get cutting your coils.  You want your "air gap" to just be the coreless stator and the magnetic clearance gap around it.