Magnetic Levitation VAWT

dude the same magnets placed in degrees, wil make it spin with out wind!!

I would like more info on your magnetic bearing if you dont mind

you've done a great & fantastic job, but I have a pair of questions... are you storing the energy in batteries? actually I'm developing a WT in Colombia, what's the order of efficiency of your MagLev VAWT? have you simulate the behavior of the device on a Finite Element Analysis software?? thanks & regards...

Thanks. I am using batteries now but shortly will be switching over to grid tie for the winter. I have not done an efficiency or analysis of yet. I would like to get COMSOL but it costs about $20K. It would do allow me to model both the wind turbine and electric generator but just too expensive for small companies.

Check out OpenFoam. It's public domain but requires a Linux system. I have a bunch of videos up showing some of the output.

I like the turbine. It looks a lot like my first one. What kind of power did you get in the 10 MPH wind?

When you start to produce power and the alt puts a load on the turbine, I wonder if the drag of conventional bearings is all that significant. Have you found that they waste a lot of power?

nice

Hi Jeff from Australia,
can you tell me approximately the diameter of the unit? And of the center shaft? I am thinking of building something about this size but am worried the center shaft will bend, causing the alternator magnets to hit the coils.

Also, I noticed you have the radius at the front of your aerfoils pointing toward the center of the unit, whereas Ed Lenz has his pointing out - is there a reason for this (it sure seems to work great regardless).

Thanks for your time - keep going!

23" diameter

1" Inside Diameter Shaft Schedule 40 water pipe

Airfoils are one yard high

Lenz cants his wings at 9 degrees based on testing. Lenz's design is a compromise and has good low speed properties (acts like a drag turbine at low speeds). Mine are true symmetrical airfoils and they seem to work best at that angle (possibly because the disc damps the wing tip vortex) but this design is not as good as Lenz for low (<5mph) wind speeds.

What airfoil did you use for the wings?

I designed my airfoil using software called Profili. I decided to use a symmetrical design for this turbine.