Venturi wind turbines

mrdarr > The website looks interesting, but mrdarr > it looks like they won't have product mrdarr > shipped until later this year...

Gib Bogle > They will never have a product shipped.

Can a giant funnel with vanes inside be patented?

I can picture a huge funnel like scoop on the top of an old farm windmill tower, aimed into the wind by a big tail vane and a fixed wind pipe through the center of the tower connected to the wind tube at back of funnel by a slipping ring joint.

The sheerwind design looks like it eliminates the moving parts with an omnidirectional input funnel with vanes.

Can such a thing be patented? Didn't such omnidirectional wind catchers exist before?

It's all been tried, unsuccessfully (from the investors' point of view).

(33 ft) with a collection area (greenhouse) of 46 hectares (110 acres) and a diameter of 244 metres (801 ft), obtaining a maximum power output of about 50 kW."

someplace really cold...

You could maybe grow stuff in that greenhouse and burn it. Or eat it.

ust

(Oh, darn--I forgot to paint it green.)

James

someplace really cold...

Well they have this indoor rainforest in Iowa

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Thanks. I didn't know that. Got a link?

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Pelton wheels reverse the water flow for greater efficiency compared with just stopping the flow. Art

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At the right speed (circumferencial velocity approximantely half the speed of the water) they stop it dead.

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No, I read this a couple of years ago when I took a look at installing solar or wind generation. Paying someone to install a system is pretty pricey and it doesn't pay for itself for decades, if ever. I hear the Chinese have dramatically dropped the price of PV solar equipment, but we are putting a *huge* surcharge on it because we claim dumping. Meanwhile Germany is installing them hand over fist.

I don't recall all the details of windmills, the swept area is important, but the propeller design has some built-in contradictions like this velocity thing that limits efficiency. I hope I'm not remembering it wrong. Sometimes that happens... lol

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That would be nice if it could be done with wind. Maybe it can, but wind is over a large area so how do you turn it around? The Pelton wheel wouldn't work in a river, it works with a directed stream. It's possible this concept could be applied to the Windshear design at the generator. At that point the wind is a higher speed stream like the spout of the Pelton water wheel. Who knows? A lot depends on the details.

Even so, just how much of the energy of the flowing water is turned into motion of the wheel? If the wheel reaches the speed of the flowing water, it no longer pushes on the wheel. If the Pelton can shoot the water back out at the same speed it impacts the water wheel, it should read optimum efficiency with the paddles moving at half the speed of the water jet. Then the water rebounding from the wheel is stopped dead and falls... or something. What do you do with the water? It would tend to pile up. If you do that with the wind, it would also pile up. So you just can't get all the energy from the wind, it has to leave some to move the air out of the way to allow for more wind... no?

Rick, With a Pelton wheel, you use it in a special housing. A nozzle directs the flow on to the wheel, which has blades shaped like two half circles joined together. (If you have already looked up the Pelton wheel, please forgive me...) The water flow hits at the point of the join, where the water is first directed sideways, and then backwards so the water flows in two fans to either side of the original jet. A basin and drain below catches the water and drains it, so there is not 'backflow' to deal with. The blades should be spinning in air.

Imagine a water-powered Pelton wheel operating in water and you'll appreciate why an air-powered Pelton wheel doesn't work in air.

someplace really cold...

conservatives.

What, they were asking for taxpayer funding for it?

o.O

The air-powered version might work in a *vacuum*, but (depending on the grade of vacuum) there are things that do better already, e.g., turbomolecular pumps (for very little gas, of course).

Tim