Author Topic: upside down wind turbine?  (Read 3914 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

gww

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 762
  • Country: us
upside down wind turbine?
« on: March 27, 2013, 08:03:49 PM »
I saw a small artical in a farm magazine.  Put wind catching chute on top of old silos and reduce the size of the chute as the air goes through it.
Your thoughts?
gww

Royalwdg

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 68
  • Country: us
Re: upside down wind turbine?
« Reply #1 on: March 27, 2013, 10:57:10 PM »
Tell us more.  Sounds interesting.

gww

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 762
  • Country: us
Re: upside down wind turbine?
« Reply #2 on: March 28, 2013, 05:34:12 AM »
This site has a picture on the right side.

http://www.startribune.com/business/181600151.html?refer=y

gww

site was slow on my computer.

bart

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 200
  • Country: us
Re: upside down wind turbine?
« Reply #3 on: March 28, 2013, 06:42:22 AM »
   Looks cool and if you read the comments, there is more info from some one associated with them.
But there is no mention of cost. And from a guy with no engineering background, the supporting structure looks massive compared to a guyed or mono-poled HAWT.
   How well is it going to survive the first thunderstorm?

dnix71

  • SuperHero Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 2513
Re: upside down wind turbine?
« Reply #4 on: March 28, 2013, 02:26:12 PM »

bob golding

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 691
  • Country: gb
Re: upside down wind turbine?
« Reply #5 on: March 28, 2013, 07:16:31 PM »
i have only one question about this design. why?
if i cant fix it i can fix it so it cant be fixed.

gww

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 762
  • Country: us
Re: upside down wind turbine?
« Reply #6 on: March 28, 2013, 08:07:26 PM »
Bob

Quote
i have only one question about this design. why?

Sort of what I wanted to know.  I only read a small blip.  Said it could get 70% efficency compared to about 15% for a hwt.  Towers were cheeper. ect ect... 

I figured if it was going to be debunked what better place to come but here.

Cheers
gww

Frank S

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1901
  • Country: us
  • Home with a view of Double mountain
Re: upside down wind turbine?
« Reply #7 on: March 28, 2013, 10:10:38 PM »
instead of a blunderbus they could stand it on its end use the solar heated Earth to create a vertical wind in the form of a vortex.
 the concept is sound if not very practical
http://vortexengine.ca/covers/Tesla_Excerpt.pdf
I live so far outside of the box, when I die they will stretch my carcass over the coffin

dnix71

  • SuperHero Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 2513
Re: upside down wind turbine?
« Reply #8 on: March 29, 2013, 12:06:56 AM »
Frank S The standing vortex idea could be tried on an existing but unused power plant draft tower. The downside to this device is that if the vortex wiggles too much it may damage or destroy the tower that contains it. It also makes the atmosphere more stable by mixing warm moist air from the ground with cooler air above. That would reduce precipitation locally in some places.

Frank S

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1901
  • Country: us
  • Home with a view of Double mountain
Re: upside down wind turbine?
« Reply #9 on: March 29, 2013, 02:00:10 AM »
Frank S The standing vortex idea could be tried on an existing but unused power plant draft tower. The downside to this device is that if the vortex wiggles too much it may damage or destroy the tower that contains it. It also makes the atmosphere more stable by mixing warm moist air from the ground with cooler air above. That would reduce precipitation locally in some places.

The use of thermal chimneys is quite common place in many areas in Europe Asia and some places in Africa where the humidity is high coupled with high temperatures as well they are used for natural convection cooling. A well designed system can draw as much as 20% of the relative humidity out of the air while reducing the felt temperature heat index as much as 30 degrees in some areas a significant amount of water can be recovered which goes into a cistern.
 having very long low overhangs and a tall chimney is the key, but the updraft is far too low velocity to be used for energy production without a huge umbrella  like canopy
I live so far outside of the box, when I die they will stretch my carcass over the coffin

finnsawyer

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1565
Re: upside down wind turbine?
« Reply #10 on: April 03, 2013, 11:08:25 PM »
     Gww, if you want it debunked, I'll take a stab at it.  What diameter do they use to measure the efficiency?  They should use the large one.  Now, nature has something to say about the process.  The air that reaches the blades has to speed up so the same mass per unit time flows out of the back of the mill as flows into the scoop.  Simple physics.  But it takes a force (pressure) to make the air speed up.  From natures viewpoint the thing looks like an obstacle, which it is.  Consequently, the pressure rises in front of the scoop.  That, in turn, deflects some of the air around the structure, reducing its effectiveness.  At the end of the day the thing probably operates pretty much like a mill having the larger diameter, as all windmills have air deflected around them.  That is, they are all obstacles and nature's goal is to keep the mass of air moving overall at a constant rate.  You can get the flavor of this by considering air flowing around a tree.  In that case all the air in front of the tree must be deflected.  This requires a build up of a dome of pressure in front of the tree to provide the deflecting force.  In the process the air flowing past the tree is sped up!  In turn, the pressure there becomes less.  This, in turn, results in a drop of pressure behind the tree, which results in the tree bending backwards.  Same thing happens to you. 8)

bob golding

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 691
  • Country: gb
Re: upside down wind turbine?
« Reply #11 on: April 04, 2013, 08:26:29 AM »
just to add to the debunking, i read a bit of the paper they wrote, not all of it as i saw a problem in there assumptions straight away. there analysis doesn't take into account any back pressure from the turbine blades. now i don't know how this is calculated but i am sure betts limit  will come into it at some point. maybe a tapered turbine something like mr parsons invented a while ago might work better, but it is starting to get complicated now.

 my advice is don't invest!! i could make one and stick it on the roof of my coach, but think i  might just buy more solar panels instead. be a good science fair project though. not sure if debunking is allowed in science projects though. might be seem as free energy.
if i cant fix it i can fix it so it cant be fixed.

equiluxe

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 54
Re: upside down wind turbine?
« Reply #12 on: April 14, 2013, 11:26:55 AM »
This is not a new idea, I saw it in a book written in the late 1950's in that one the suggestion was to have the long tube going up the side of a hill or mountain and the wind blowing across the top of it would suck air through the system, along with another idea of a free spinning wind turbine with hollow blades, centrifugal force would throw air out of the blade tips and in so doing would suck air through a turbine mounted at ground level driving an alternator. The idea was no wind speed regulation problems and no heavy machinery mounted on top of the mast just the blades.