Lenz VAWT III

This is my latest attempt at taking Ed Lenz's excellent design and 'simplicating' it to make it mass production suitable. I have chosen corflute plastic for its light weight, low price and transportability. Center shaft is two aluminium tubes with a Maglev bearing (two neodymium magnets). This design could be shipped flat packed and assembled by the user on site. Need to compete with solar price of around $5 per watt.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• VAWT
• Wind turbine
• corflute
• Ed Lenz
• Maglev.

[sjh7132]

The lenz gets most of it's power from the air going over the round front and causing lift in front of the blade. I can see why yours wouldn't work as well. Good try though.

[samdekok72]

@sjh7132 You've lost me there. 'Lift' in the radial direction would only place extra radial friction on the unit, in an uneven direction, and slowing it down wouldn't it? I can't visualise the fluid mechanics across all 3 blades actually benefiting from this. Does anyone have a decent FE model to prove this? I get the theory, but to me it's counter intuitive.

[samdekok72]

@sjh7132 Ah I just saw your openfoam simulation and now I understand your point. I am curious though - does your FE analysis apply the force externally like a directional wind load to the entire system, or did you apply a point load instead to the central axis for the 3 blades? It almost appears to be the latter as I cannot see the pressure maintained to the left side of the video as a function of time?

[sjh7132]

@samdekok72

The video you saw was a crude one when I was still learning how to do sims. The simulation does it's best to take all forces on all surfaces into account (in 2d for the spinoff). Even the affect of the pole on the airflow is taken into account.

[sjh7132]

@samdekok72

Go to vawts [dot] net and look at the spinoff-results thread. I've posted many cfd videos there of various turbines including the lenz2.

[itsandbits1]

gotta keep the rounded le or you lose the low pressure lift

[ufoengines]

I like this idea more and more!

[wiboater4]

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