Thread: Windmills along the lake
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Old 02-27-2011, 02:54 PM   #3
Yankee
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Default New wind turbine design
I ran across this a while back. A well respected massachusetts aerospace company is taking its ducted fan technology used in commercial jet engines and applying it to wind turbines: http://www.flodesign.org/clients.html

This is a really cool application of existing technology. There's two advantages over conventional propeller type wind turbine design: 1) a similar power level generating ducted fan design is smaller, and they can be placed closer together and 2) more importantly it will operate efficiently at both higher and lower wind velocities.

For those who wish to learn about the technology, I've attached 2 white papers published by Flodesign that discuss the aerodynamic theory.

Or watch this Youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8Si-74IcrQ

It will be interesting to see if this alternative design takes off. There are other companies that are introducing similar ducted fan designs.
Attached Images
File Type: pdf New Developments in Shrouds and Augmentors.pdf (302.8 KB, 1430 views)
File Type: pdf ducted wind turbines and propellers revisited.pdf (239.7 KB, 2295 views)
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So what have we learned in the past two thousand years?

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of Obamunism should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest the Republic become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."

. . .Evidently nothing.

(Cicero, 55 BC augmented by me, 2010 AD)
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