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from the what-will-don-quixote-make-of-these dept.
It's no longer surprising to encounter 100-foot pinwheels spinning in the breeze as you drive down the highway. But don't get too comfortable with that view. A Spanish company called Vortex Bladeless is proposing a radical new way to generate wind energy that will once again upend what you see outside your car window.
Their idea is the Vortex, a bladeless wind turbine that looks like a giant rolled joint shooting into the sky. The Vortex has the same goals as conventional wind turbines: To turn breezes into kinetic energy that can be used as electricity. But it goes about it in an entirely different way.
Instead of capturing energy via the circular motion of a propeller, the Vortex takes advantage of what's known as vorticity, an aerodynamic effect that produces a pattern of spinning vortices. Vorticity has long been considered the enemy of architects and engineers, who actively try to design their way around these whirlpools of wind. And for good reason: With enough wind, vorticity can lead to an oscillating motion in structures, which, in some cases, like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, can cause their eventual collapse.
Less efficient than traditional wind turbines, but quiet and don't kill birds.
(Score: 1) by Bobs on Thursday November 19 2015, @06:34PM
There are fewer moving parts.
To net it out: it produces less electricity but costs less to build, costs less to operate / maintain and they can be placed closer together.
Its makers boast the fact that there are no gears, bolts, or mechanically moving parts, which they say makes the Vortex cheaper to manufacture and maintain.
...
captures 30 percent less than conventional wind turbines, but that shortcoming is compensated by the fact that you can put double the Vortex turbines into the same space
If maintenance is low enough it could be a much better option over time than traditional turbines.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday November 19 2015, @07:53PM
The 30 percent figure is a fudge because it is all based on the square area of the device.
The pole of these blade-less devices has a very small area compared to the entire swath of turbine rotor blades.
Their math assumes scaling the area up to match a typical windmill.
The most efficient windmills are not more than 50% efficient even in the most windy places of the world. The Benz limit of extractable power from wind is something near 59%. In optimum conditions current technology can recover 80% of that limit, which is around 47%.
The power produced by a windmill is given by the following formula:
Power (in Watts) = C (constant) x k (efficiency factor) x (Diameter of the windmill in meters)2 x (Speed of the wind in m/s)3
The power is proportional to the square of the diameter of the propellers, which helps us to understand why modern windmills have grown bigger and bigger, with ever larger diameters, in their attempt to produce significant amounts of energy.
47% of the square of the diameter of the propellers is a LOT more than 40 percent of the wind hitting a pole.
.
From TFA:
“It looks like asparagus, It’s much more natural.”
Glad we have good science people working on this.
They’re hoping to have their first product, a 9-foot, 100-watt turbine that will be used in developing countries, ready before the end of the year.
Which is it guys, a turbine or a vortex generator.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Osamabobama on Thursday November 19 2015, @09:34PM
Your equation doesn't need to specify the units of the power, diameter, or wind speed if you don't specify the units of the constant. But, based on the SI units provided, it looks like the constant would be in s^2/m^4.
It was enough to make me curious, which led me to this site which discusses the theory: http://www.mathworks.com/products/symbolic/code-examples.html?file=/products/demos/symbolictlbx/Wind_turbine/Wind_turbine_power.html [mathworks.com]
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday November 20 2015, @07:55PM
“It looks like asparagus, It’s much more natural.”
Glad we have good science people working on this.
If NIMBYs didn't exist I would agree with you. But, they do.