AWEIA topic index           |     Cousin topics re: QM, Metamaterials, Kite Matter

Topic
Kite network lattices as metamaterials

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Feb. 19, 2021                                              KN :: kite networks
Global Kite Network Research
Hi Chris,

NREL poses a nice challenge to the US AWE R&D Community to collaborate under their emerging leadership, in effect to run the AWES architectural horse race on their race-track, with their scientists as judges. As Jochem affirms, NREL starts "agnostic" with regard to solutions, and is eying the entire field, including AWEurope contenders.

Since 2009, kPower's major research focus (with EU partners in DE, UK, GR, and FR) is Kite Networks, as the ultimate AWES scaling strategy. This still has involved evaluating every possible unit-kite variant singly, while doing many simple multi-kite experiments with as little as two or a handful of unit-kites.

Potential km GW scale Kite Networks are a vast topological space we heuristically explore with regard to primary design constraints. At some upper scale limit (depending on wind-rose statistics), it becomes impractical to rotate a KN to face wind shifts, so we mostly explore iso-symmetric rigs topologically like spiderwebs ("SpiderMills", after Ockels), that simply tilt back from wind in any direction. These are envisioned to wobble more or less passively in a Dutch-Roll dynamic, with power extracted by crosswind legs.

We have been constructing "toy-scale" proof-of-concept iso-networks, but also looking toward simulation and other test methods. We have watched you work with printed scale models in a flume, and suppose that would be an ideal means to test many ideas fast, to effectively do mini-flyoff comparisons. The starting link below shows that embedding string nets in 3D unit-kite nodes would work, and greatly simplify model fabrication.

This note therefore is to ask if NC State CORE Lab is interested in partnering in global Kite Network research with its benchtop flume, 3D printing capability, and understanding of scaling-invariant analysis. Some attached slides convey the sort of iso-symmetric KN geometries to explore. Its expected you already intend testing many other concepts, and your list could come to include the full scope of world AWES research.

Thanks for any thoughts on new US collaborations and string-net 3D printed flume test capability, ahead of the upcoming NREL Workshop.

Best,

Dave Santos

[[Email request from editor@upperwindpower.com an email set of the images. ]]
May 6, 2020, post by Dave Santos
Deconstructing Wayne's 2015 Waves-of-Wheat AWES Network Model-

- Waving wheat stalks are closely identical in key physical parameters of mass, length, spacing, and stiffness; the physical preconditions for coherent metamaterial dynamics.

- There is an average cushion of air between stalk masses that acts like a spring-mass network, that pulls or pushes each stalk to collectively develop large coherent waves.

- Each stalk with grain mass is a curious kite analogue, obviously not an exact match, but the collective dynamics are indeed instructive of kite network possibilities, as Wayne found.

- Bulk wheat waves are essentially Faraday Waves in liquid-crystal wheat mass, and could in principle be tapped at each stalk. Similar waves occur in hair and tree foliage.

- Someday the "brush topology" of hairy-wave models might prove workable in AWE, but 3D lattices of a many-connected string networks seem to be the current practical path forward.

May 4, 2020, post by Dave Santos
Lost 2015 Wayne German Text
 
As written to eWind, Wayne's vision is essentially a metamaterial lattice wave topology, rather beyond the earlier "vertical blinds affair." This counts as early agreement of kite metamaterial potential:

"I know how to make efficient kite power using kites that could remain in the same location if the wind was constant.  And it could move to a new location if the wind changed.  And many other identical kites could be close but they would all be blown to new locations in unison like fields of wheat -- and they would never have to sit on a stand if the wind were to die -- they would just stay motionless until the wind would move them to a new location at which they could stay and make power -- and just using rope tethers without power conducting wires or cables.

stationary kites.  The methods I coud tell you could put hundreds of high altitude wind power machines in the same space because they would all be blown in synchrony with the wind -- kind of like wheat out in a field -- they don't collide they all bend in the wind in unison without impacting each other."                         
~ Wayne German


Feb. 17, 2020, post by Dave Santos
Best match yet for kPower analogue physics

The QM is modeled by cross-connected springs and masses hung upside-down, similar to kites hanging upward by effective negative mass. Lattice waves as Bloch waves. Acoustic metamaterials identification. Its all looking good-

"The analogy between classical mechanical systems such as the ones demonstrated here and quantum and electromagnetic phenomena offer a new modality for developing more complex functions of phononic crystals and acoustic metamaterials."             See:
One-Dimensional Mass-Spring Chains Supporting Elastic Waves with Non-Conventional Topology
by Pierre Deymier and Keith Runge
Nov 30, 2019                    Dave Santos
Kite network lattices as metamaterials (third-party references)  

Energetic pumping elastic lattice waves in soft media validated, analogous to theoretic AWES kitematter, like Wubbo’s SpiderMill topology. Confirmed preloading of the polymer lattice media with tension of zero-point energy, then free-energy packets can be shot ballistically over long distances.

https://www.pnas.org/content/113/35/9722

This paper in Nature presents embodied logic such as many kite-rigging methods and theoretic kite networks offer-
Bifurcation-based embodied logic and autonomous actuation
[Yijie Jiang] [Lucia M. Korpas] [Jordan R. Raney]
Nature Communications (2019)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-08055-3


The metamaterial revolution continues...