Cones are the best compression method.
You are right taking the energy down in a much denser medium is more sensible especially considering the line losses of air and the added energy needed to make it useful at surface depth.

I changed my array to a spinning bag
Picture uploading

Now ... more supposition and light meandering hypothesis,

Given a tether point and a large set of spinning wings,... The trailing edge of these wings will produce many small but short lived vortices (brevity due to viscosity of air)

In magnetism, many vortice pairs can be persuaded to join together to form a large vortex.
Thinking dyson vacuum in reverse now.

Could a cotra-rotating multi sail device passing close on the end tips of our original sails improve vortex combination...
Is there a way to harness that power, maybe by exhaust fluting? or would we even want to since we already have a contra-rotation device?

might make the air dirty.

back to jelly fish design.

It seems to me that small (fat every dimension) jellyfish are relatively more rapid and capable than large thin membranes.

If this applies to kites.
The design is an inflated fat ring outer sheath (could be a polar arrayed set of outward facing kites), with it's tips (tethers for kites) tied to a squashable bag (air reservior).
The outer ring damps the action of wind variation whilst the inner bag springs the ring back in place. the reciprocal (pumping, if the bag is valved like a heart) / (or pulling if the bag is sealed spring) is used for generation.

uploaded a final spinning linked chain design.

Final because transmission by rotation limits altitude.

Time for more pulse transmission drawings... thinking Mackerel, eels, and flying fish

Apart from all being colourful and tasty;
they are all sleek, fast, longitudinally vibrating, multi-fin tangential to vibration, longitudinally tensioned

anyone got any suggestions for the next drawing idea they want to see after this one... feel free to let me know.

 Anyone got any suggestions for the next drawing idea they want to see ... 
... feel free to let me know .... ~   Rod  

[In our forum " Photos " secton, see Rod's album that is being built by him. 
Link is on the left of message pages online.]

===================   To do list:    =================
[ ]  Send AWECS ideas to Rod Read, so he might draw up renditions of those ideas.  
          ==========================================================

I'm glad you have moved on from sonic power transmission.  Think how easily you could blow your eardrums out on a single AAA battery.  The folks using thermoacoustics for serious power use heavy enclosures.  

Partly in response to BobS comment about moving on from the sound issue.

Pausing a bit more on the sound issue that DaveS expanded nicely:

What flashed for me upon the ushering out and beyond... in a kind of
resistance ...
was the question: What are the many potential practical uses that sound
from above might serve? I envision a very robust answer to such by
someone eventually, but also left open for furthering. Perhaps not just
now, but eventually.

1. Countering frequencies upon enemy sound attack?

2. Smoothing sound frequencies to make some sound less irritating.

3. Perhaps sounds to disperse pests from crops.

4. Perhaps sounds to encourage or discourage growth of certain plants or
animals.

5. Wide and far alerting sounds to help save lives in emergencies.

6. Entertaining huge party-attending persons from sounds given by AWECS.

7. Sounds to calm a rioting crowd.

8. ?

OK, there could be direct uses for modestly powered sound generators.  A variation on 3 or 4 might be a noisy scarecrow kite.  

AWEIA TACO?
Can you give a link to the original source? Is this your work?

I think it is a great summary.

So when we start evaluating a potential site we need to put up some kind of bird/bat counting system as well as a wind logger. Are there such devices?

Brian

A permanent testing ground would be interesting to validate or invalidate main concepts in AWE:flying turbines (crosswind or not),multiturbine (Superturbine),torsion (Rod's drawings, Superturbine yet),drag-based (reel-out/in and variants crosswind or not),oscillating...

A permanent institute for trials would be a high interest for investors.Many players are geographically next to DougS's.

DaveS could elaborate a protocole for the validation comprising the ways,for example co-studying reports from DougS according criterions :

-method;

-wind speed;

-area swept by the AWECS;

-kite area or blades'area;

-weight aloft;

-weight at ground;

-duration;

-average energy;

-peak energy;

-AREA AND VOLUME OF SPACE OCCUPATION ACCORDING TO WINDS DIRECTIONS CHANGES...and following evaluation of the cost offshore,onshore (only the price of the space),and examples of localities.

-Elements of reliability...

A permanent place would be easier than competitions where deplacements are required.

Such a testing ground could be financed by investors like WOW for example and other investors like...why not...me or you.

PierreB

http://flygenkite.com  

We've had quite a few "dust devils" here lately. Most people don't realize that we routinely have wind events in the high desert that would be on the news anywhere else.
We chased a "tornado" down the street just the other day. Lots of refuse in the air. Many "mini-tornados" orbiting each other to form one bigger "mini-tornado".

We have steel gates blown off the rails, etc.
One thing I've noted is that such surprise vortices challenge regular wind turbines with regard to sudden aim changes, precession that can rip off blades, etc.

I can only imagine that when such a mini-tornado, which can happen anywhere, hits an airborne wind energy system, a system that had been assumed to be stable might end up like our steel gates - blown off the tracks. Surprise damage from a system that was assumed to have been stable.

Doug S.

I think it's time to call out the liars at the first lie.
This system is touted as though it's already tested and available:

"Designed and patented at CESC, the EAGLE System can handle a 2.5 kW, 25 kW or 100 kW aloft generator at varying altitudes, combining a hybrid tethered lighter-than-air and aerodynamic lift based flyer, supporting a counter-rotating wind power generator payload, combined with a nonlinear-robust MIMO control system, with longitudinal and lateral control capabilities."

Prediction: I say it will never be built or flown and if it is it will never work out. Gee ya think?

I read another wind energy lying press release every day:
http://www.airgenesiswind.com/
A company has "developed" (professor crackpot has paid for a rendering) a 10.7 Megawatt dual-rotor turbine that claims to beat the Betz coefficient and happens to look just like my SuperTwin(TM) except it's Professor Crackpot's first time (a wind virgin?) and he forgot (didn't understand) to even separate the rotors. He just thinks one can pile rotors together in the same wind area and they will all work great without one subtracting from the other.

He's confident that he can suddenly build a turbine larger than any experienced wind energy manufacturer ever has, without skipping a beat, and offering no evidence. Obviously professor crackpot has never read one textbook on turbine design, but he gets his obligatory (lying?) press-release anyway.

One day it's Honeywell, the next we are bowing down in awe (get it? AWE?) that the revered NASA (OMG!) has entered the room (Elvis has left the building) and "will be developing", (studying, whatever), airborne wind energy systems.

With every lying press release, somehow all the persistent problems that plague real-life wind energy systems are either not addressed, or more often, not even known about, by the over-enthusiastic promoters of what they do not even realize themselves are nothing but lies lies lies. (sorry but it's true) (true lies - back to Arnold...) ("I'll be back...")

It's all bullshit and it would be nice for someone to figure out that these AWE systems can be built right now for a few bucks, in a weekend, out of wood scraps and off-the-shelf components, if anyone wanted to stop blogging and issuing lying press-releases long enough to get their hands dirty and actually TRY (not render) anything new.

But like the kids tell me, "our generation has forgotten how to play music - we just sample your music from the 70's and 80's", they've forgotten how to build anything and just want to re-sample old ideas digitally and have meaningless discussions in a digital, virtual world that does not sufficiently mirror reality to get a working system up and running.

Rule 1:
Stop blogging and build something.
Rule 2:
Shut up about what it's "going to do" - just tell us "what it's DONE".

If there is ONE classification of statement that is almost ALWAYS a lie, it is a statement by any person or entity of their own future activity. Ironically that is the one thing they actually have any control over!

hey, where's Arnold's Hydrogen Highway?

Here's another clean-energy press-release-lie that even included real legislation, that ALL turned out to be ALL bullshit:

"The panic to produce electrics started in 1990 when California adopted rules that required car companies to sell "zero emission vehicles" (ZEVs)â€"two percent beginning in 1998, five percent by 2001, and 10 percent by 2003â€"or pull out of the state. With California representing 12 percent of U.S. car sales, the rush was on.

In 1991, Congressional bills were introduced to spend $60 million to jump start electric car development, promising an "automobile revolution" that would reduce air pollution and oil consumption.

General Motors wowed the press in 1993 with the Impact prototype two-seat electric car, capable of a zero to 60 mph time of eight seconds. By the time 1998 rolled around, every major automaker that sold cars in the U.S. had an electric vehicle available to lease, mostly to government or business fleets. Eventually, California eased off, and then cancelled the ZEV mandate. Only around 2,000 electric vehicles found their way to streets and highways."

Latest in the news: Arnold decided to run for goobernator on a lark when he thought the announcement would get a good laugh on the Jay Leno show. He thought it would be "fun" to be governor. Well it was "fun" meeting him and Maria at the top of Mammoth Mtn. But I never had the impression there was any substance to his goobernatorship. He was just "having fun"! So I hope everyone is "having fun".
Guess what? Making systems that can actually perform is also fun! (just a lot of work though).

Late...
Doug S.

I have used a handheld ultrasonic re-modulator device for listening to bats (an old building to be renovated was protected due to bat presence). It gives a clear signal of bat activity.

Otherwise I'm sure airports use bird detection systems...
see http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/innovation/tdc-projects-air-e-5162-441.htm

http://etd.ohiolink.edu/send-pdf.cgi/Tierno%20Nicholas%20C.pdf?case1308165209

 

A new twist on a mix of my twisting concepts, sprung to mind yesterday.

Apparently, bats and birds are not struck directly by windmill blades.  The critters are not that dumb.  However, they fly too close to the downwind surface of the blades, and the change in air pressure blows out their lungs.  Kites, with a lower L/D ratio, may prove safe.  Windmill operators have also found that the birds are attracted to the bugs that are attracted to the mills, and that purple paint reduces problems by over half, AFAIR. 

This is a fantastic post.

I have been ages trying to work out a method of creating a self tacking Otterboard style device, I had d-rings top and bottom, big whips....
I was talking otterboards whilst by a river with an old pal today, and throwing a frizbee into wind watching it go up and come back to me...

I thought that was study enough... but no.

Thanks Dave, you hit it every time

Here's another video of that same flying wind turbine with 21 wood rotors, suspended from a kite.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DycDx3y61Io
Doug Selsam

DougS,

Congratulations.The power seems to be something like 300W.Can you provide wind speed during the tests,and also the diameter of turbines (0.5 m?) and the global swept area (which is given by vertical projection of the global height (seeming to be a value like 5 or 6 m) of both turbines and their diameter:3 m²) ?

For a good appreciation you could do measures with similar conditions with only one turbine for comparison.

My idea is that each turbine should not provide shadow on each other turbines;so could you also do measures with only 10 turbines for the same swept area (the result could be yet better:less weight,more tether angle)?And furthering determinate the better optimization?

I am in accord with you some scientific searches are realized on the basis of a probably not really working basis.
But your realizations (mixing different concepts like alpha angle _ with lift for turbines _ ,single shaft,numerous light turbines) should be the object of precise studies on real measures according to different configurations showing where is the best optimization. 

PierreB

http://flygenkite.com  

Dave S.
Thanks for the obligatory refutation of any statement I may hazard to make on this list.

Without reading your whole post, counter-rotating generator halves is one of the OLDEST "newbie" "improvements".

Seen the movie "Groundhog Day"? Well it's groundhog day in AWE again. Read the (daily) lies. Understand that they are lies.
It will not be built. It looks like Shepard's patents from 30 years ago, and many others. It's right in the pocket of many previous designs that will also never be built.
I say flag the lies as soon as they occur.

In my opinion, one main problem plaguing AWE right now, is the same problem plaguing regular ("improved") wind energy: A culture of lies.
Nobody thinks anything of it:

They read all the other lies and look at all the renderings (more powerful new way to lie) and think: "We can out-lie them! We can do renderings and say anything we want too!" Cite any numbers! Give details of fictional products! Add any statement as though it's a fact! "All we gotta do is make sure it is a statement of something we're GOING to do in the FUTURE and NOBODY will be able to say it's a lie!" (or will they? will someone finally start to see the pattern? after thousands of almost identical lies?)

The worst thing is they don't even realize they've degenerated into a format of all lies: They see everyone else doing it and think: "This is how it's done!" Nurtured (100% immersed) in a culture of lying press-releases, they've never come up for air to run the numbers and see how many of these lying press-releases turn out to be true! (zero!) I say poke your head above the surface and look around! See what's real!

Just the way it's worded indicates it is lies:
Offering a selection of specific generator sizes for example:
"Oh you can order yours in a 2.5 kW edition"
Why cite specific generator sizes in a press release for something that has never been built or even tried, even in a prototype stage?

It is silly.
Empty statements that are simply not true.
It will never be built and never put out the stated power levels and the citation of these specific power levels are all you gotta see to start dissecting it as one more big clean-energy lie.
One way to flag liars (or so I've heard) is they offer too many details. (?)

The worst thing to me is they cite some big impressive name, watering down the authority carried by this name.
If enough false statements citing "Case Western Reserve University" or whatever are issued eventually it might start to impact the credibility of the big-name outfit itself.

After seeing the largest big acronym agencies pronounce infinite action followed by complete nothingness, I'm still waiting to see any of them develop anything of any significance whatsoever in this field.

:)
Doug S.
(This is so much fun!)

Thanks Pierre:
It was a pretty shaky marginal demo but at least it worked to spin a generator.

Here's some research on the general multi-rotor concept we did for the CEC:

http://www.energy.ca.gov/2007publications/CEC-500-2007-111/CEC-500-2007-111.PDF

I've applied, in collaboration with a major well-known wind energy professor at the University of California to DOE/NREL to do CFD studies on rotor angle and spacing, but one of their hired-gun technical reviewers said they didn't think much of the idea so it was passed over.

This was back when I started realizing that the agencies stating that they want to pull out all the stops and try new things, do not, really want to try anything new at all. They are experts in the status quo and want to stay that way. And if you let them bring you down to their level (get it? bring you down to their level???) of doing nothing all day long you will never get anything built and running but be mired in reams of paperwork and stacks of lies, forever.

Have a (groundhog) day!
:)
Doug S.

AWE question: "what day is this"?
AWE Answer: "groundhog day!"

I'm also a technical reviewer, and I've had experience with the effect of propeller shaft angle on prop performance.  That's why I strongly suggest trying a version of the Superturbine with universal joints to allow the turbines to face directly into the wind.  However, someone else seems very sure their first version can't be improved.

In my experience, "birds" is an issue that perpetuates because it's something that laymen can feel like they understand (though they don't have a clue), so by diverting onto the tangent subject of bird strikes, they can feel like they are participating in a meaningful, technical discussion of wind energy, without having to actually know anything about wind energy.

It's all an illusion: They really don't know anything about the causes of avian mortality either!

The wind energy industry has sponsored some studies that show the causes of avian deaths attributable to mankind. Their research has been duplicated by the Audubon Society, which is squarely on board as a supporter of wind energy, as a net gain for birds.

The first cause, by far, is habitat destruction! Ironically, in spite of the limited danger of a few bird strikes, windfarms are the safest place a bird could ever want to raise a family, simply because there is a place for them that is not paved over! We've had birds build nests in our turbines! Oooh yeah they must really be dangerous...

The biggest causes of man-caused avian deaths are windows in buildings, since birds fly into them, radio towers and power lines, cars and trucks, and of course, the biggie, housecats!

Housecats fall into the "woman-caused" (forget man-caused - just giving males a bad name - let's call it like it is!) avian deaths, but they don't care. Women draw a blank when confronted with the simple question "how many birds has your cat killed this year?"

I had some lady on the phone asking about our turbines hitting birds.
Now I know it's possible for a turbine to hit a bird, but in all the years I've been doing this, I've never seen a dead bird or bat below any of our turbines or any windfarm turbine. Not once! I asked her how many birds her cat has killed this year.. silence... How did I know she had a cat? I profiled her. She's concerned with avian deaths from windmills, so she has a cat. 90% chance.

Meanwhile I have seen a crow get hit by a car recently. Couldn't get out of the way in time. Bam! Cars and trucks kill millions of birds!

Why then, why why why, have you NEVER heard a discussion about whether we should ban cars and trucks, or even divert a major freeway away from a known migration flightpath, since they "impact the avian population"?

Answer? People have plenty of topics around cars and trucks to talk about that they understand, so they don't need to grasp at straws for a topic they THINK they understand in order to talk about cars. They talk about comfort, mileage, styling, maintenance, tires, color, airbags, visibility, crash-worthiness, fuel-injector cleaners - ANYTHING except birds. Yet if you ran the numbers, which kills more birds: wind turbines or cars and trucks? I think you know the answer!

Now if you wanted to write an article for a car magazine and said it was going to be about "the avian issue", they would look at you like you were crazy! They would say "what issue"? A-what? are you nuts?

And you are! That's why you are fixated on birds and bats instead of real wind energy issues: This is a phantom issue from the peanut gallery. All anyone has to do is list the causes of avian deaths in descending order and they will quickly find that a campaign against housecats, which kill billions of birds every year, would on a pie-chart make the sliver killed by windmills too thin to even see, but the idiots don't care about facts.

All they care about is having a talking point that SOUNDS to OTHER idiots like it is relevant.
KNOWING that they are in a world of other idiots, there is little incentive for some people to make any sense. It is more important to SEEM to make sense, given the target audience, used to a diet of all lies, all the time!
:)
Have a (groundhog) day!
Doug S.

Seeing birds fly fills our earthbound brains with wonder.

Playing with wings (dead and alive) taught our ancients how it works.

We may yet find more flight patterns and derive more natural laws of fluid motion from careful, full spectrum bird observations.

Hello,

at TU Delft we have been testing now perhaps 30 days (each day perhaps 6 hours) with
the current team, so perhaps 180 hours.

During this time we once observed a bird, that had a collision with the tether. It survived and
continued to fly, but was a little bit dizzy.

This is not an objective, statistically representative observation, just my current knowledge.

The risk for birds, to collide with a fast moving tether can be mitigated, if a dancing (or balanced)
pair of kites is used. In this case the length of the tether, that is moving fast through the air
is reduced a lot.

Regards:

Uwe Fechner

PhD researcher, ASSET, TU Delft
www.kitepower.eu

Am 03.10.2011 23:03, schrieb Darin Selby:

Come on Doug, let us know what you really think....

I guess I'm charitable enough to think of them as "believers" rather
than "liars" but that makes no difference in the probability that they
will produce something useful.

Dave's picked up on the first thing I noticed, the aerostat was
obviously sketched by someone with no experience in the field.
The cylindrical center section is bad for aerodynamics and difficult to build.
Don't get me started on the stubby little wings and the undersized
tail surfaces.

Using a cheap conventionally shaped aerostat makes a lot of sense
especially in the early stages.

If you want more lift I suspect that adding some rigid wings to an
aerostat would make much more sense than trying to make a balloon into
an airfoil.

Not to say that an inflatable airfoil can't be done, my point is that
the time and money required to make a mediocre inflatable wing could
be used to make a much better performing rigid wing.

Andrew King
King Technical Services