A crash course in changing the world.

A New Type of Wind Turbine .

OK, this is a strange one.

I've been playing around with fans and found that they spend a lot of the winds energy on moving in the wrong direction. the wind hits them at a 90 degree angle of where they turn to. And so the blades have to be aerodynamically designed and very large to get a turn from the wind, there needs to be a minimum of wind for it to work at all.

it would be much cheaper and much more efficient to have the fan horizontal, so that the blades don't have to be specifically designed and can catch more of the wind. however, any person with sense will tell you you cant lay a fan down because the wind will hit both sides of the blades and prevent it from turning.

the solution is, in my view, in turning the blades a quarter of a turn to lay down when they are against the wind and lay up to catch the wind when in the right position.

Yes, only one blade will hit the wind at a time, lowering efficiency. but remember there is not loss of energy to move the blades at a 90 degree angle. the wind will be pushing in the direction its blowing. my calculations put it in on about at about the same energy output.

so why use it? its cheaper. it costs far less to make a small hinge and flat blade than an aerodynamically designed fiberglass blade. its lighter, more efficient, and... finally... better placed. these fans lay down and so they can be stacked on a single pole. more turbines in less space.

Thats my idea, it needs to be prototyped. it should cost about 100 dollars to make the first if you know how to build a hinge.

Tags: ACT3

Comment by Shakwei Mbindyo on March 22, 2010 at 1:33pm: +1 resourcefulness. Are you going to build the prototype?

Comment by Omri or something on March 22, 2010 at 1:36pm: Hope so. working on the solar heat engine first (from the other blog).

just got the pipes so I think it should be a few weeks for something to come out of it.

Comment by Massive Attack on March 22, 2010 at 5:10pm: I never thought about that. It's a good idea, keep us posted

Comment by Omri or something on March 22, 2010 at 5:11pm: It will take some time to make such a prototype. I'm working on the solar powered one for now. maybe in a month or two I'll get to it.
But thanks a lot

Comment by Andrew on March 22, 2010 at 7:16pm: This is awesome. I'd love to have you post updates on this project on our local site www.imaginecsi.webs.com. It's just an awesome alt. energy idea that if it had some exposure could *blow some people away.

dumb pun.

Comment by Michele Baron on March 22, 2010 at 7:44pm: Bernoulli principle compressible/incompressible air flow calculations--lift principles [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernoulli's_principle] can help as you work on this--lift calculations translate to power generation levels. Everyone comes from somewhere--my father built/flew double-horizontal fan hovercraft --pretty fun to fly. Needed flexible outer-circ**ference chambering to prevent (incompressible air...) air-flow loss, loss of power, crashing. If you stack your horizontal blades, you might want to think about partitioning the chambers... Good post.

Comment by Omri or something on March 22, 2010 at 7:59pm: I think the good thing about this idea is that it doesn't need to deal with lift. the blade can be flat as the wind is turning it in the direction of spin anyway.
I love hovercraft's, they may be unstable, but it just makes it more fun.