Living Inside A Giant Wind Turbine

A reader writes: "New Scientist has an article about buildings that incorporate numerous wind turbines. These neat office blocks can generate much of the own energy and the design of the building actually makes them more power efficient that regular turbines."

Comments

Noise?

[^Z]

AFAIK, wind turbines generate considerable low-frequency noise. Unless this problem is seriously addressed, such a building would be somehow uncomfortable.
Though, wind flowing through a thight agglomeration of skyscrapers generates noise anyway %-)

New World Trade Center......

[Chanc_Gorkon]

I believe this would be a great design for a New World Trade Center. It's beautiful, energy efficient and large. Definitely almost looks like the WTC (twin tower type design....). It would also prevent power outages from taking out your whole building. It would be a great way to get people and companies to put offices in these buildings.....advertised free or discounted electricity.

I do not fear working in a tall skyscraper because working in a tall building is not what killed these people. I believe it would be impossible to build something that can take the force of these type of blasts. If you do fear working in these type of buildings, well then the terrorists have already won. They want you to be afraid of them and you need to be strong and show them you are not afraid of them.

Efficiency of 1 large fan vs many small fans

[hexx]

It seems to me that 1 large fan could have a catastrophic failure - while thousands of small fans in the same space would greatly limit that possibility.

Furethermore I believe multiple small fans would be more efficient. Now, IANAAE (I am not an aeronautical engineer) but the total airflow through a large fan's housing is much greater than the amount of airflow that actually pushes the fan (obvious). Many small fans could fill that area more completely and harvest more of the total airflow.

Any thoughts?

Re:Efficiency of 1 large fan vs many small fans

[hexx]

Multiple fans mean multiple inspections & failures. An array of 100 3-meter fans would probably cause more problems than one well-maintained 30 meter fan, and cost more than a nuclear pile in the basement :-).

This is not necessarily a problem. Look at lightbulbs. Many small bulbs is better than one large one - until a certain number fail there is no need to replace any.

Furthermore, some fans (like better the cooling fans in my cases) spin for years on end without failure - and are cheap!

w/r/t the spillage problem, you could do this more simply with one large multivaned turbine.

Yes, but this increases the mass of the fan and makes a catastrophic failure even moreso... Imagine a 2 ton 100RPM fan breaking out of it's enclosure in downtown Chicago.

Re:What about high winds?

[WolfWithoutAClause]

The pitch of the props can be adjusted to have a minimum crossection, and can be made strong enough for any wind speed lower than that necessary to destroy the building.

Buildings focus the wind anyway- it's a major concern in many buildings. Careful design near the ground will obviate the problem. Arguably this building may be less problematical in this regard- the building will be slowing the air rather than just diverting it around the outside.

Re:brings new meaning to old cliches...

[lizrd]

Speaking of "the shit just hit the fan", what is thins going do to urban pidgeon populations? Them damned things make enough of a mess without being chopped into pieces and spread across the city by giant fan blades. Bird bisection is a well known problem in the case of rural turbine installations, but the carcasses are generally eaten by foxes and other small carnivores. In an urban setting the mess created could become a significant problem.

When I was in college I had a job working as a custodian. Picking up discarded cigarette butts and soda cans outside of the building was bad enough work. I can't even imagine having the job of picking up bird bits from the sidewalk.