Newbie VAWT Design and Prototype

[swimmer4uus]

Hello all.  This will be my first post on this board, but I've been silently reading for a while.  For some time I've been researching renewable energy sources.  This is emphasis of my major, Mechanical Engineering, and I would vastly like to pursue a career in this field.  So, for kicks and giggles I've been designing a probably by now familiar VAWT.  
Following have been my guidelines for the mechanical opperations of the Turbine:
1. Have a very low self startup speed
2. Be interchangeable in application: that is to say, be able to move the axis of rotation from verticle, to horizontal if necessary (I will elaborate more later)

So, for the first criteria, a simple yet effective design is used.  I went with a 3 blade, sperical helix design, but again, not very uncommon to see the "helix" turbine around.  

Basic blade design:


Here's the first attempt at a mold:


It's going to be a couple more days before I can post a picture of the final rotating assembly, but just couldn't hold out on posting some pictures, and getting a couple suggestions

[RP]

A few thoughts:

1.  Don't worry about startup much below about 8mph.  There just isn't much energy there to grab at really low speeds.

2.  That seems like a clever way to prototype your design.  If you twisted all three pieces of duct around the the pipe at the same time you might be be able to get some "self alignment" of the sections.

3.  You'll want to cap the ends of the volutes

[swimmer4uus]

You mean like this?


I have two things going.  First, I want to get a prototype of the blades going.  Second, to get a working mold going for the second go, making it faster, and easier to make.

I started on the mold, then paused it realizing I want to do the prototype first

[swimmer4uus]

She's up on her own legs!  Still haven't finished everything.  I still have to finish the trim, and fibgerlass the coupler on the bottom.  Still have no idea how I'm going about the generator part.  Ideas?

[electrondady1]

you need to get a centre shaft and bearings in there some how.
is that aps pipe still inside?

[GoVertical]

 Greetings, Nice work. The commercial model has a transmission between the helix and the PMA. What kind of RPM's are you hoping to achieve?

[swimmer4uus]

The PVC pipe is still there to facilitate the bearing and to get it spinning.  I've yet to figure out what bearings I'm going to use, nor which generator.  Right now it's sitting on a hard drive mated to a PVC female coupler.  I'm trying to figure out a way to get a couple bearings mounted inside, as I didn't think too far ahead in the attachement of the blades to the shaft.  Also, the PVC can still be removed.

I'm not sure on the RPM's yet.  This is definantly a fun project not an actual piece that's going into production usage.

[swimmer4uus]

For kicks and giggles I made a short video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5ZKVtnlVp0