Microwind Generator For Low Power Systems

An anonymous reader wrote in to say that "Shawn Frayne, has developed Windbelt, efficient, cheap lowpower wind generator built out of taut kite fabric." Everyone has seen the video where the suspension bridge is ripped apart by wind- his idea was to use the same thing to generate power. I doubt I'll be running my desktop off it any time soon, but it's a cool idea.

Comments

Sub-100W generators are very interesting...

[DamonHD]

...but it is not at all clear what their efficiency or $/Watt or manufacturing cost will be. Although absolute efficiency is maybe not critical for many applications given that the wind is free, cost is important in, for example, third-world deployments.

See the discussion here for example: http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2007/10/13/9445/4984

Much as I'm intrigued by this let's not get into perpetual motion machines nor "beating Betz" just yet! In particular the "30x as efficient as the best microturbines" claim in TFA is particularly suspect: I have a VAWT made from a cardboard cereal packet in my back garden that probably extracts 10% of the available energy.

Rgds

Damon

A bit more detail

[AndroidCat]

Shawn Frayne's Windbelt Wins Popular Mechanics 2007 Breakthrough Award

Not a Single Engineering Reply

[BoRegardless]

There was not any engineering detail to go on from the video, I agree. But trashing the idea without getting the numbers is bad science, more akin to the nightly news.

The whole concept is interesting, because it can work with wood and cloth instead of mylar and aluminum. The "first world" part would be the magnet, coils and the DC rectifier/converter to allow a user to likely charge a battery.

How many of these generators and how big they would be to extract a usable 10 watts of charging power in a 5-10 mph wind hasn't been defined, but with a couple models, that can be determined.

You never learn anything by bitching. Buckling up and testing is the way this & other ideas will be understood and improved. For the 3rd world, just a minimal LED lamp array can make the difference between studying at night or not.

Re:Not a Single Engineering Reply

[Bucc5062]

Fine, then make one and truly answer the parents post. He/she talks about how people were trashing the idea, but not by applying actual effort to prove or disprove, just unsubstantiated opinion.

I am not an engineer, I do not think I could build this, but were I capable I'd try it out and start to look at the numbers.

1 - It was said it would not work in low winds (5/10 mph) because the demo used a fan. Prove it I say. it may be a combination of material tension and mass of the magnet.

2 - It was said it would buzz. Prove it. Build one and measure the decibels produced. Can the sound be dampened without losing efficiency.

3 - It was said it was not 30x efficient. Prove it. Build one and compare it to other micro wind generators (though the video indicated there were few out there)

I know this is /. and most times we don't read the article, we have varying opinions, but it does surprise me that out of all the eggheads on this blog list, there are not some who could duplicate the experiment and show results. until proven differently, my opinion is that this device is a cool idea worthy of more review, and an example of genuine innovation.

Re:And how exactly does the science work?

[ashitaka]

The reference to the Tacoma Narrows bridge is very relevant. Galloping Gertie showed that even without hurricane-force winds a very heavy ribbon-shaped strip can me made to move in an extreme fashion due to mechanical resonance. Even a small strip would have the same kind of resonance so that large relative movement can be extracted from even light winds.

Haven't you ever made a blade of grass whistle between your thumbs?

Re:Macro wind power: Kite Gen

[0111 1110]

Birds are not noted for their advanced intelligence.

Au contraire mon ami Aussi. Convinced yet?