Author Topic: Centrifugal Clutch Brake  (Read 2082 times)

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Wisdom Bear

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Centrifugal Clutch Brake
« on: May 02, 2011, 12:47:08 PM »
I have seen a lot about Centrifugal clutch but not where used to brake the blades.
Anyone tried this?

Would use instead of furling.

Flux

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Re: Centrifugal Clutch Brake
« Reply #1 on: May 02, 2011, 12:57:34 PM »
No form of centrifugal brake will work on wind power beyond tiny units. The heat to be dissipated will burn the thing out. Any brake for a wind turbine must be applied to bring the thing to standstill quickly. Any centrifugal thing will keep the brake slipping at operating speed and you will have kilowatts of heat developed.

The only conceivable use I can see for a centrifugal clutch would be to enable start up in lower winds with an alternator with serious cogging issues. At start up level the power lost in the clutch probably would be tolerable as long as the alternator got moving fairly quickly.

The only thing capable of dissipating the continuous power to control a non furling turbine is the old air brake mechanism used by Wincharger.

You are dealing with power levels that rise with wind speed cubed so things get out of hand very quickly as the wind picks up.

Wisdom Bear

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Re: Centrifugal Clutch Brake
« Reply #2 on: May 02, 2011, 01:02:57 PM »
OK 
Thank you

And that now makes sense. I wasn't thinking about the heat build up and you were.