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Hi Roddy:
I just wanted you to see what they were doing in Greece 2000 years ago.
Obviously they weren't using parafoils, they were using "sails", but
what they DID have is something that WORKED, unlike what you have so
far. Hey, don't give up, a ring of soft cloth surfaces obviously worked
well for 1000 years so it is proven technology.
You may have noted my position that every "new" wind turbine design
that comes along, is usually thousands of years old. (God, this gets
old after a while - pun intended). I think these 2000-year-old rings of
sails are pretty much exactly like the ring you made, except for not
having parafoils, and that theirs provided useful power for 1000 years,
and probably some still do, whereas yours doesn't actually work yet.
But I like what you're doing - it is far above the rest in my opinion.
At least you are only 2000 years behind the curve instead of 3000 years
like most! Seriously, I do see the potential, but you should also know
wind turbine design history, and realize this basic ring of sails is
not new by any means.
I can see the "press releases" carved into stone tablets by Fredeus Flintstoneus:
"This advanced turbine is based on the principle of using only the blade tips, since the blade tips produce the most power".
Where have you heard that before? I wish Corwin were still here to joke
around with, and dish out a good-natured ribbing to, since "blade tips
only" was Makani's elevator-pitch tagline.
Do you think a green energy PhD bureaucrat, flying to conference after
conference, has any idea that turbines used only the blade tips
thousands of years ago? Heck no, they are too busy acting "smart" to
actually know much of anything! All they really know is what they are
told: You have a steady job, don;t screw it up. There is global
warming, so if anyone uses the word "green" give them money. If global
warming turns to global cooling on the normal schedule, can we
retroactively retract their PhD's? Where's the accountability?
When you want me to stop proving that every "new" idea in wind energy
is thousands of years old, let me know, K? I just want you to know I
was not kidding or exaggerating - there you have it, a turbine that
uses only blade tips - and it happens to also be "a ring of kites",
literally hailing from near the stone age.
These were the first turbines, and blade "tips" was all anyone knew at
the time. Complete-length blades were unknown! It was only as the
centuries dragged on, that windsmiths slowly realized they could get
more power by increasing the aspect ratio of their blades. bringing the
reactive surface all the way to the root.
One of the pix of the ancient Greek windmills shows the blade sails having a high aspect ratio, extending toward the root.
So you see, using "only the blade tips" was how wind turbines got
started, before anyone had seen a long blade, to even know they were
"only using the tips"... Yup you can't make this stuff up. It's all way
stupider than most realize.
Here's what happened next: a lattice backing frame was applied, to add
strength and define a high-aspect-ratio airfoil. The number of blades
was reduced to four, when it was seen that the extra blades did no
good. So they had reduced the "tips-only" multi-blade rotor using soft
cloth surfaces, to a few, high-aspect-ratio blades, with a defined
airfoil shape, traveling in a constant crosswind circle, 1000 years
ago. (pulsating, reciprocating, and flapping machines, in addition to
vertical-axis machines, were already considered "stone-age", during the
stone-age!)
Then about 100 years ago, the need to drive electric generators
emerged, whereupon rotational speed became paramount, and the cloth
became either impregnated with resin, or discarded entirely leaving the
mere thin wooden spar carved into an airfoil.
This stage of wind turbine design 100 years ago developed hand-in-hand
with aviation technology. It was realized that a soft cloth propeller
was incapable of modern performance speeds, and as the wooden propeller
was developed as the best known medium of continuous kinetic energy
exchange with an open flow fluid, it was realized that the electric
wind turbine was best outfitted with 2 or 3 wooden blades, or the
composite equivalent, to form a high-speed, low-solidity rotor.
That same basic low-solidity, high-speed wooden propeller was the basis
of flying machines that lifted straight up - helicopters, and
gyrocopters. None of these machines uses a cloth sail, since the energy
exchange performance, as well as reliability, dictate hard blades.
You've read on this list that I am completely ignorant of aviation
technology, however, I am at least basically up to speed on these
developments, rather than lagging 150 years or so behind what's been
learned in the meantime. My aviation understanding is beyond flapping
cloth, that is for sure! Steam punk is neat, but modern reality is just
a little neater.
Mastering the technology of flying machines and wind turbines would
seem essential to the art of AWE, and obviously, as I have pointed out
in the past, a Venn diagram is useful in seeing where the sets of wind
energy and aviation converge. But when they taught us Venn diagrams in
6th grade, the teachers were probably saying "These kids will probably
never use this "new math" anyway..." and they were right.
Why would all those PhD's use 6th grade new math? They are obviously
"far above" that level of thinking. They like to fly kites.
I think someone should document how many PhD's spend how much time on
supposed AWE systems before any of them develops even a clue to how to
properly do it, and how much time, energy, and money will have been
wasted on fruitless, and ill-advised schemes. We can laugh at the
results in the future, like we all giggle at the pulsating, flapping,
hopping, first attempts at aviation that happened to make it onto film.
Have a day!
:)
Doug Selsam
Hard lessons from testing - stuff doesn't always work the first try.
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