Rough vision: 

Airborne Seaborne Wind Energy System is a mix between AWES and conventional wind turbines.The rotor works also as tangential transmission,allowing generators to be at sea level.So the rotor leans on the station-generators while being maintained by suspentes.And the (lift and drag) strengths working in the direction of tethers the size of rotor has a high potential of scaling up.

Thanks for your remarks.

PierreB

http://wheelwind.com

http://flygenkite.com

Question to clarify: 

Yes it is,the floating station-generators is at sea level and is also linked to the single anchor with a cable to assure counter couple.

 

PierreB

 

http://wheelwind.com

http://flygenkite.com  

Yes it is,the floating station-generators is at sea level and is also linked to the single anchor with a cable to assure counter torque allowing the rotation and transmission of the rotor.

 

PierreB

 

http://flygenkite.com

http://wheelwind.com

Pierre,
This is very exciting design work. I will study your system's structure
more, and also revisit Rod Read's similar yet different toroid designs
to see if I'm able to make any constructive comments regarding longevity
of the apparatus for both your works.

An idea to help reduce the cost of an anchored system would be to place
a sea farming sphere on the anchor line. This may help stabilize the
counter torque action (like a sea drogue), and you could subcontract the
system's regular inspections to the fish farmers. A hybrid device could
reduce risk factors & keep both ventures more profitable.

I've attached two youtube links about fish farming in spherical (or the
like) mesh volumes.
Regards,
DaveB Murray

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUwYV3AsS-c&feature=em-share_video_user

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5OLxxM64KY&feature=em-share_video_user


--- In AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com, Pierre BENHAIEM
<pierre.benhaiem@... linked to the single anchor with a cable to assure counter torque
allowing the rotation and transmission of the rotor. PierreB
http://flygenkite.comhttp://wheelwind.com
http://www.energykitesystems.net/WheelWind/tangentplace.jpg Clip take
from video.

Joe,
Your vision seems more in line with the first of these two options
posted by Doug S., August 28th,

"So, if you want to be successful in AWE, make something in your garage
that
works and let people know so they demand to buy one, and you are making
money,
with no debt, and you are on your way.
OR
Spend all your time chasing investment and grants, spend it all in
slightly
inappropriate ways, get deep in debt, get depressed and overworked from
too much
flying and too many meetings, lament the fact that you never get into
the shop
to actually DO anything, and give up."

My past experience doing the latter has brought me to the conclusion
that most people pursue their thrills more than cheaper utilities, etc.
So I tried to balance the time I was spending on infrastructure proposal
work ( http://agronautics.com/post/26091845678 ) with design time spent
on the possibility of keeping peoples physically inhabited constructs as
thrilling as the virtual worlds we are more & more being fed. Healthy
economies need to continually build things, so why not make uplifting
stuff when possible.

I decided to pursue my thrills by designing uplifting spaces for people
in a literal way. The design process first started only on the water,
with a type of sailboat that could leverage benefit from fluidic density
differences (after Havilah S. Hawkins, 1918-1999,
http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=6022380
). The geared system I was thinking of differed from the Hawkins type in
that I was playing with the idea of a soft traction rotor system that
could be reefed down, or dropped, much like a cloth sail, but still sail
directly into the wind. After waking one morning, dreaming of kites,
the design type started to evolve, to try to fly...

I've spent the last two weeks on vacation & found the time to review my
image files for these lifting design types, and put them in order to
covey the early stages of design development that led to the various
concepts. Please see the new August postings at http://flyinground.com/
(clicking on the "archive" button at the top right of a page should
present a page of thumbnails for quicker viewing)

Hoping for more lifting visions for all,
DaveB Murray


--- In AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com, "Joe Faust" <joefaust333@... wrote:
in
passengers

That will keep me wakeful tonight!

I hadn't seen those before thanks DBM.
Using....
A mix of one of those spheres, bouyancy control, and an elevated top handrail from a standard ring style fish farm,
you could have...
A height controlled omnidirectional tilting platform for driving cariages around on the rail...
A bit like my http://youtu.be/GYVBevi2Sjg  but so much better.

How will one's AWES wrestle with such as this: 

Progress: HPR

DaveB,

Thank you for the compliment.As DougS indicates on an old post the device able to be a link between wind turbine and rotary aircraft is like-autogiro.At a good  wind speeds (5-7 m/s) for production, autogiro' lift is not enough for a complete flight.With launching generators as motors as soon as the rotor has an enough incidence,lift and drag easily maintain the rotor being also maintened by its own station-generators etc.according to a chain of forces allowing a lighter structure for a giant turbine with generators at sea level.

This year I will realize a prototype or prove of concept.

Good idea for the sphere.

PierreB

http://flygenkite.com

http://wheelwind.com

 

 

  

Util LLC thanks Kitelab Group for initiating this opportunity.
Please submit proposals to me at edoishi@yahoo.com

Ed Sapir
Util

We get a lot of them around here in the zsouthern Californin High Desert when it is calm and sunny. This is the general area where they filmed "Sky King" a million years ago by the way.
I've been hit by a few dust devils. The tip can be as little as 2 feet in diameter like a little vacuum cleaner. Once I heard a noise like a screaming vaccuum cleaner, looked up, and saw a dust devil enveloping a Joshua tree, singing through the spines. They can also be real big, and go way way up into the sky, visible from far far away. Sometimes we watch trash carried high into the air as they course through neighborhoods. One day recently it was hot, humid, and still, with huge thunderheads all around, and several huge dust-devils visible for miles around. I was waiting for a dust devil to hook up with a thunderhead and turn into a proper tornado, but it never did. The rain sometimes evaporates just as its hitting the ground and you can have a storm that barely gets you wet and leaves the ground dry in the end. We sometimes get winds around here that would be called a hurricane or tornado anywhere normal.
Signed
Dusty McDevil

At a guess, the trend to giantism in conventional windmills is due to the economics of tower size.  Dave S. shows that subdividing the turbine improves the weight/area ratio, and the shaft speed.  Smaller generators are easier to cool.  With robotic manufacture, material can be divided among many units with economies of frequency overbalancing economies of scale.  Using many elements usually gives a gradual failure mode, improving overall reliability.  The additional tether weight for a flying generator limits the altitude, and the extra weight aloft increases risks, but greatly simplifies the ground rigging.

Support for this thread has been: 

"The devil is in the details" ,"the devil is in the dust".

 

PierreB

"There is the unresolved challenge of seeking innovative methods by which to keep larger rotors airborne and to transmit power to ground level." But maybe not for ever.Airborne Seaborne Wind Energy System is a projected system with a peripherical transmission (torus of rotor as mean of transmission) where generators are at sea level,and seaborne.A semi-AWES looks like the solution to increase the size of the rotor maintened both by tethers,by sea,and by cables between the anchoring and both the rotor and the station.

 

PierreB

http://wheelwind.com

http://flygenkite.com  

I would have patented a mesh of rotors back in the day, but saw prior art patents (somebody had already patented it). One I liked hung a mesh of rotors from a cable stretched horizontally. People talk about side-by-side arrays forever, but nobody ever builds one. That's where innovation meets laziness and endless excuses not to build: "Oh I gotta go to Aunt Tilly's for a Labor Day Barbecue", etc.

Wind energy is the most bizarre field: ridiculous ideas are endlessly pursued, while perfectly reasonable and promising ideas are endlessly ignored. The people who would like to innovate don't even know the basics, to take a meaningful step, while the veterans are fossilized and (yawn) too tired of fixing turbines to try and modify the basic design (If it works, after 3000 years of changes, don't change it).

The reason I was able to get a patent on SuperTurbine(R) was it was not quite as obvious as a sheet of rotors, so nobody had patented it yet. Our latest patent introduces sheets of Superturbines(R), which combines the SuperTurbine(R) concept with the sheet of rotors concept.

Of course the first thing that comes to mind for wind energy people would be the lower Reynolds number at a smaller diameter and its attendant lower efficiency. But, as I point out in my patents, smaller rotors also use way less material per unit power:

Just as power is a cubic function with respect to the windspeed, rotor weight is a cubic function with respect to diameter, whereas power is only a square function with respect to diameter.

So power per unit rotor weight is inversely proportional to diameter.

There was a pregnant sentence that most will skim over and ignore, or not understand. (Nobody ever done cotton-pickin' listens to little ole' me.)

It seems that would-be innovators are endlessly drawn to what would be easy for a child to understand, rather than what works. But then again, a sheet of rotors is easy to understand.

I think the key is people only pursue what WON'T work. Simple or complicated, it doesn't matter. The unifying factor is the ideas pursued must be unlikely and ungainly. Clumsy helps too. Anything simple that would just work is probably too boring. Or it might cut your finger off (take it from me). And where's Professor Crackpot's reputation when he just stuck a bunch of little windmills together from a 1940's patent? He has to show a more subtle (mis)understanding of aerodynamics than that, and name it something fancy, like "FloDesign", so he can trick Kleiner Perkins into giving him a few million to waste before he "quietly goes away".

And to get a patent - hey all the good ideas are already in the public domain (well not really but...) - gotta think up a new twist on old BAD (preferably disproven) ideas to get a patent, then armed with that useless hail-Mary patent, one can get funding! Hey, what a great game!

Yeah but Dave S., how could an industry-standard rotor ever compete with an oscillating, flapping, slowly-self-shredding piece of cloth?
If you keep talking about rotors, we may lower your medication and let you out for weekend unsupervised visits, so you can attend Aunt Tilly's Labor Day Barbecue!

Happy Labor Day - or is it memorial day? I always get them mixed up. Whatever you call it, today is a good day to work on AWE!
:)
Doug S.

Another advantage of sheet design is hot swapping. 

"Pierre, with Airborne Seaborne Wind Energy System ... A quick question... Where the tip of the outer ring integrates with the floating generation unit... Am I correct to presume the power taken by using friction from the passing ring to drive a generator or does the ring hold magnets/coils?"

 

Rod,

 

The animation does not show the details.That works a little like a dynamo of bicycle.It is a peripherical transmission.The station contains a ring surrounding the torus.The ring contains generators arround the torus and has a crack allowing torus passing.Each generator has a wheel rolling against the torus."power taken by using friction from the passing ring" would be maybe also a possibility but the torus _ being outside _ would bring some water or salt and should contain more equipments.With wheels on generators it is less difficult to by-pass this problem:it is a little like a car rolling under salty rain,but fortunately not quite,the rotor being a little above sea level because of important dimensions of all elements.The peripherical transmission allows also to eliminate the necessity of a gearbox for any dimensions of the rotor.

 

In some dispositions the ring holds magnets/coils,but then its weight is higher and the generator aloft.I prefer generators to be at sea lever,and that should be possible (for huge rotor) with hybrid (both airborne and seaborne) configuration where the rotor is held both by air (tethers) and by sea (floating station).

 

In the present configuration (for peripherical or tangential transmission like described) several smaller rotors would not be possible and also not wished. One can see that conventional wind energy evolves towards bigger and bigger single rotors.Configurations with a lot of smaller rotors involve heavier structure (excepted with Selsam' configuration but even the shaft must be held by the two ends) and probably aerodynamic losses (it is a point to be claread up),otherwise why in a farm of wind turbines each of the units is widely separated from the neighbor?In fact the heavier part in a great rotor is the hub,not the complete blades.

 

Torus can be made in light structure like Tensairity (tm),and where stalks can be roads for wheels of generators.In the other hand I do not think cloth blades are _ at less at present _ a good solution because of both low efficiency and duration.Note: for a lesser cost why not to make blades in sections by extrusion, without drilling them, only by directing differently each of the sections?

 

PierreB

http://wheelwind.com

http://flygenkite.com

 

 

Correction,I wrote:" a crack allowing torus passing";reading "an opening allowing blades passing".See the last drawing on

http://wheelwind.com ,page technology.

 

PierreB

http://wheelwind.com

http://flygenkite.com

 

Quality! I like it Pierre.

I like it too.
Consider an alternate configuration with the generator setup like a
subway train, inside the torus. The crustaceans will love the equipment
less this way...
Also, think about the launch sequence. What forces are in play when the
toroid detaches from the water surface? Maybe the natural pumping
potential of air pushed along in a tube can help with this
(oscillations). The efficiencies of a WIG (wing in ground effect) design
approach may help with force requirements for full separation
(unsticking).
DaveB

--- In AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com, "roderickjosephread"
<rod.read@...

Start with a 4-rotor "mesh" and you are SkyWindPower.
SkyWindPower has perhaps the most promising, of the currently-promoted general design directions for AWE, in my humble opinion.

Funny how we humans can make something so simple as AWE seem so complicated. I see at least 10 good directions for easy AWE, each of which could be broken down into steps to get there, with almost nobody taking any such steps, to make any of them happen.
It keeps taking me back to a guy whom I really admired in college - he had no arms and almost no hands. But at least he still made things happen. So he's actually a bad example of (most of us) sitting there as though helpless, taking none of the obvious steps to reach any ostensible goal. We AWE visionaries have all our parts working, but seldom use them.

Any problem can be broken down into steps. I don't see anyone taking any of the requisite steps, let alone really addressing the problem as a whole. It's like I was telling P.J., you can have a "one bullet - one kill" approach, or you can adopt a "full-auto, indiscriminate waste-of-ammo" approach. In one case the battle is quickly won, in the other you have to keep radioing in to HQ for more ammo, and some air support, and artillery cover, while your guys shoot randomly in the wrong direction, and the effort eventually falls apart, with both the battle and the war lost, no matter how many resources are squandered.

If this forum is the best we have, it could use improving.
So far, by reading this list and going to the AWEConsortium website, one would think Joby and Magenn were still in business, and sposoring events. What good are all those press-releases and fancy logos now? Can we in retrospect now identify most of what they were promoting as simply "lies"?

I could be making a fool of myself, still mocking Magenn as though they are still in business, and "predicting" they would bite the dust like all drag-based machines do, but unknown to any of us "fully-connected world-class visionaries" the darn company went out of business, perhaps a year ago(?) and this forum did NOTHING to let anyone know. Let's see, Magenn was based on ignorance, and yet our forum was ignorant of their ignorance, and even ignorant of their existence, or non-existence. "Captain, the ship is breaking up!"

And JOBY - out of business for a YEAR and we didn't even KNOW? Why is that? Is nobody on this forum connected with any of these efforts? Is nobody aware of these efforts? And if so, how can this forum claim to be the main communication channel for AWE, if we don't even know whom the (ostensible) "players" are, to within a year?

I'd say most of what appears here is 100% ignorant: Ignorant of wind energy, and even ignorant of which companies are active in AWE, which companies even EXIST. Computers and the internet can sometimes be quite an empty waste of time.

I think Doug is not quite with us here. A forum is not exactly a journalistic publishing house to ferret out breaking news. Essentially, it is a table where members are welcomed to share as they choose.
If I remember correctly, Doug shared the info on state of affairs at Joby and all else have simply offered their opinions by way of comments. I am not aware of any Joby insider who had been active on the forum before now and certainly do not expect any such person to be an eager volunteer in announcing their turn of fortunes.
We all are equally responsible for what information is made available on the forum. Thanks to our 'eager givers' sharing of whatever little they have.
JohnO

---

 

"What forces are in play when the
toroid detaches from the water surface?"

 

Generators work as motors then wind takes the place when the angle of incidence is enough large.The station is (always) held at sea level by the submarine cable while the opposite half of rotor is free thanks to the small mast,but stays (only by the torus) at sea level (the animation does not show it) because of its weight but not being pushed in the water thanks to the support by the mast until take-off.

 

So the rotor turns while the submarine cable is drawn making the station to prop up and the opposite half of rotor rearing a little, allowing sometimes a little angle opening a window for wind rushing,that allowing the angle to extend in the whole half part of rotor situated upwind,then the angle to increase.All tethers are also useful for the control of take-off and the balancing of the rotor,that while the cable of the mast is unwound.   

 

Note:the rotor is held both by air by means of tethers (lift and drag are used,more and more drag when the angle increases) and by sea by support of the floating station.

 

Indeed each offshore installation is a paradise for crustaceans and fishes. 

PierreB,

 

http://wheelwind.com

http://flygenkite.com

I would worry about the high surface friction when the torus is floating, preventing lift-off speed.  A pilot kite or floating mast might be necessary. 

 

The same message with some corrections

 

Phase of rotor rearing for production: generators work as motors then wind takes the place when the angle of incidence is enough large.The station is (always) held at sea level by the submarine cable while the opposite part of the rotor is free,but tilts towards at sea level (the animation does not show it) because of its weight but not being pushed strong in the water thanks to the support by the mast until take-off.So the rotor turns while the submarine cable is drawn making the station to prop up and the opposite part of rotor rearing a little, allowing sometimes a little angle opening a window for wind rushing,that allowing the angle to extend in the whole half part of rotor situated upwind,then the angle to increase.During the phase of rearing all tethers are also useful for the control and the balancing of the rotor,that while the cable of the mast is unwound.Lift and drag are used,more and more drag when the angle increases.

 

PierreB

Due to the floating mast (one can see it on the animation) and the floating station (see the message below) only the opposite part of a huge torus tilts towards water level (the animation does not show it) but without strong force thanks to the floating mast.After it is a problem of measure for the height of mast regarding torus tilting during rest position.The torus can be made in Tensairity (tm) where stalks are also roads for wheels of generators,with 3 requirements:lightness,some rigidity (although completed by holding with tethers),enough good roads.

 

Kites become a problem during production.It should be possible to rear (1/2 needed force in rapport to complete take-off) an like-autogiro rotor only both its lift (motor then generator mode),the shown floating mast,by using all means of control like tethers and cable for,why not,generating some oscillations allowing to catch the wind.  

 

 

I put again my corrected message:

 

Phase of rotor rearing for production: generators work as motors then wind takes the place when the angle of incidence is enough large.The station is (always) held at sea level by the submarine cable while the opposite part of the rotor is free,but tilts towards at sea level (the animation does not show it) because of its weight but not being pushed strong in the water thanks to the support by the mast until take-off.So the rotor turns while the submarine cable is drawn making the station to prop up and the opposite part of rotor rearing a little, allowing sometimes a little angle opening a window for wind rushing,that allowing the angle to extend in the whole half part of rotor situated upwind,then the angle to increase.During the phase of rearing all tethers are also useful for the control and the balancing of the rotor,that while the cable of the mast is unwound.Lift and drag are used,more and more drag when the angle increases.

 

PierreB
http://wheelwind.com

Hi Doug, 

Pierre,

DaveB,

 

 

Good questions,as usual.I shall have more complete responses after making a prototype or at least a POC.For this scheme the control of tethers and cables is very important.The floating mast has also its submarine cable,tethers wich axial main tether are in their winches  inside the mast at bottom position.A good management of mast cable will make vary its tensile allowing an amplitude of oscillations in rapport to the torus,that by analysis of waves at different places.

 

In case of storm,yes,the station is put in upwind position.In case of low wind,the station (moving always vith the rotor) is put in downwind position to allow the rotor rearing and making production.Although forces on the rotor can be enough to move according all wind directions (at the anchor place there is a pivot),I prefer the floating station has its own propeller as supplement mean of control.

 

As I prefer semi-rigid blades (maybe done by sections by extrusion),blades are also spokes.But the main holding is with suspentes.

 

You can see that in the proposed scheme all is used:gravity,drag and lift,counter forces (tethers and station cable) to maintain the rotor,control of tethers (suspentes) and cables,mix of semi-rigid parts (blades for efficiency,and also torus) and soft rotor maintened by suspentes,variations of floating forces...

 

The pressure into Tensairity torus is a point to clarify up.Usually for Tensairity the pressure is low.Although stalks as roads have some rigidity allowing a more efficient rolling conversion,the pressure has to be sufficient facilitating torus passing into the station without losses of efficiency.It is the raison why a rigid torus with small section can be prefered,the rigidity of the whole rotor being insured by suspentes.

 

This year I shall try making a POC,if possible with sponsors.

 

PierreB

http://wheelwind.com

http://flygenkite.com  

 

I'd start by building a small model, on a pond, that can power a home.
**************************

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-0902-cover-nextgen-airship-20120902,0,3647034.story

Thought this airship video worth the view.

Dan'l

It is what I want to say by "This year I shall try making a POC,if possible with sponsors".Maybe a ground version to verify the transmission.

 

PierreB

Dave S.:
Well this forum is still my favorite place on the web (sigh). And it survives despite your incessant drivel. Better to have a formu that at least looks at the future, though it be populated mostly by the ignorant, than no forum at all.

I didn't say no Nostradamus-loudmouths on this forum have predicted these firms would quit their efforts. I said nobody on this forum announced these failures because none of us know what these companies are doing, even to within a year, and nobody from these companies posts here. You are not the only one who predicted these companies would fail. I've been pointing out that Magenn merely took the least-effective wind turbine design into the air, making it more expensive. Any IDIOT who could run numbers could see there could NEVER be anything CLOSE to economical power production from a Magenn. Now they could have licensed a solution from me that could have increased their output dramatically and maybe given them a fighting chance, but strangely, so many would-be wind energy innovators are allergic (immune to?) facts. "Wind is invisible therefore it does what we say". This week. Next week we are out of business. Oh nooo Mr. Billll! We lied! We can't maintain the facade anymore! We get to go out of business now! At least our logos is still on the AWEConsortium website!

Of course everyone knows you have predicted that everyone will fail, since they don't have your advanced knowledge of oscillating arrays of flapping kites. You HAVE solidly predicted that the future of wind energy is your oscillating arrays, and you go into all sorts of nonsensical would-be applications of every poorly-understood fringe-science buzzword to a subject which you clearly do not understand: wind energy. So where are your results now? It's been 3 years of your domineering nonsense - where is any AWE system resulting from your vast genius??

You can't say that your predictions of the future are the same as notifications of who is in business and who is not. I'm talking about news, not Dave S.'s opinions. If you would have KNOWN when they DID give up, you would have announced it. No, we in our collective ignorance were talking about these companies for a year as though they were still in business.

Also, please realize one thing: No opinion on this forum DEFINES any truth, it is just opinions. Your opinions of my machines come from a place of no understanding, as far as I can see. Starting with the fact that you address a small subset of my ideas and remain fixated on one aspect, of one type of machine, that you claim can't work, though it has been amply demonstrated to work fine, and ending with the fact that there are easy ways to do AWE that have nothing to do with anything you or I have mentioned on this list and nobody is stumbling across them.

There would be no point in continually debating you about my machines. What you think does not define what works. They work without your permission and will continue to do so. I feel no compulsion to answer your diatribes because most of what you write makes no sense at all.

Dave: I just want to to take a solid LOOK at what you have written.
You say I am QUITE MISTAKEN that this forum missed the failures of Magenn and Joby. I would like you to either apologize, or show me where these actual failure (not your predictions) were announced in a timely manner.

Thank you.
Doug S.