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Friday, 22 January 2010

Eolic

I love wind turbines; so elegant, so monumentally disappointing. Take the Eolic folding turbine. It looks very nice and the little bundle it folds into just begs to be tucked under the arm. The only problem is this little equation
P = 0.5 x rho x A x V3
  • P = power in watts
  • rho = air density
  • A = rotor swept area, exposed to the wind
  • V = wind speed in meters/sec
That cube function means that for a turbine as small as this one (or any other size!) in any wind less than a Force 5 you'd get more power out of it if you just spun the thing by hand and anything more and the little bugger would tear itself to bits.

Pity. Nice colour scheme, though.

Power curve for a
one-meter diameter blade.
at

1 comment:

  1. SergejFriday, 22 January 2010 at 06:45:00 GMT-8

    No way! Thing's got plenty of uses! You could hook it up to a battery on a hot day, and use it as a fan. Or set it up on a hilltop and knock small birds out of the air. Small... low-flying... birds...

    Eh, it has got a nice color scheme.

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