2015-06-04 (Th) Wind Generator Turbine Design Tests

Previously 2015-06-03 (Th) five plastic pieces were printed which put different spacings between the bottles. The purpose of the different spacing was to answer the question What makes a better generator configuration: bottle overlap or gaps? Research showed that some Savonius wind turbines have overlap and claim some of the incoming air is redirected toward spinning the other turbine blade. Sometimes they are shown with no gap and may even feature three blades all touching at the axle. A third observation is a cup anemometer which captures air with a long distance between the turbine and axle.

Configurations were arranged so the overlapping bottles were at the bottom and the spaced out configurations were at the top. In the middle was the configuration where the bottles touched but did not overlap.

All plastic pieces mounted and given bottles

My hypothesis was that bottles with greater overlap would spin faster than bottle configurations with gaps.
The testing rig was put out on the balcony with no connection to the generators. No electronic monitoring was done so visual observation was the only feedback. With no numbers to support it seemed that the greater spaced bottles turned slower than the overlapping bottles. It was apparent was the bottles with greater spacing would turn in slower wind than the overlapping bottles. This suggests that more leverage is possible.

Animation of winded turbines

Video of winded turbines

No firm conclusion can be drawn yet. If the numbers confirm that greater spacing provides equal power but also turns in slower wind the question will be answered as to what is the superior wind generator.

Files for Wind Generator Turbine Design Tests

To do:
  • Construct a new test rig
  • Cut new support arms to go between pulley and generator
  • Test new spacing pieces with Arduino
  • Start testing

The rest of the posts for this project have been arranged by date.

First time here?

Completed projects from year 1.
Completed projects from year 2



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2015-06-02 (Tu)

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