Sunday, February 28, 2010

Improving the design and output of wind turbines

It seems that the two biggest problems with wind turbines are bug drag and super-sonic tips.

Bug drag:
By adding a additional structures to the lead edge of the blades like a razor edge or spikes the air could shaped in advance of the blade itself to push the impacting bug or dust sideways into the airstream so that it would have a reduced chance of impacting the blade. Also, by adding those little raised wings or a longer sweep on edge like you see on the end of new aircraft wings the tip would be less turbine have a shape that prevents end strikes and reduces noise.

Super-sonic tips:
As the blades on wind turbines get longer and they spin faster they approach the speed of sound. The sonic boom makes them bad neighbors and puts a great deal of wear and strain on the parts. A ramjet at the end of the blade in the super-sonic region would reduce the sound and increase the energy captured. A ramjet has no moving parts, so it is hard to break, (in this case it would have a set of spring loaded doors that would open only as the blade approached the speed of sound.)
The air moving through the inlet would be slowed, increasing the overall drag but as it exited it would accelerate contributing to the thrust. The shockwave would be damped inside the body of the ram, making the blade quieter even at high speeds.

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