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posted by CoolHand on Thursday November 19 2015, @06:26PM   Printer-friendly
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.


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by M. Baranczak on Thursday November 19 2015, @07:51PM

    by M. Baranczak (1673) on Thursday November 19 2015, @07:51PM (#265469)

    The article does talk about that. The shaft doesn't rotate, it flexes back and forth, and that motion is then converted to electricity.

    Biggest problem I see is material fatigue. Building a tower that can bend over and over, for several decades, without breaking? I'm sure it can be done, but can it be done at a reasonable price?

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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2015, @07:56PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2015, @07:56PM (#265471)

    Biggest problem I see is material fatigue. Building a tower that can bend over and over, for several decades, without breaking? I'm sure it can be done, but can it be done at a reasonable price?

    Literally every tall building or structure in the world bends over and over, for decades, without breaking.

    Materials such as steel have something called a Fatigue Limit [wikipedia.org]. Cyclic stress will weaken the material, but only to a point.