Simple Method of Measuring Torque of a Wind Turbine

This video shows how a fish scale can be used to measure the reaction force of the wind load acting on the sail. Force X Radius = Torque. With torque and speed, you are able to correlate the power of turbine. Many of the designs available do not have sufficient torque available to drive heavy loads but depend strickly upon high speed with relatively small blades. To cature wind energy effeciently, you must have a large surface area similar to the turbine shown in the video.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Wind Turbine
• Savonius Turbine
• Wind Energy

[Aceman307]

I like the design. Have you figured out what kind of generator set up you are going to use?

[SimpleWindSolutions]

@Aceman307 Initial plans for an industrial version called for the Ginlong 1800w. It is still probably a pretty good match, just requires a little more speed than I want.

[malovich]

thats great for STATIC torque, what about DYNAMIC torque? Surely they are not the same. You could find it with a rope wrapped around a shaft of known diameter lifting a weight. Count your RPM, use that with the torque to get the power output.

[SimpleWindSolutions]

You are right. The static load is more like a maximum output but as you can tell, the measurement is meaningless unless wind speed is also measured for comparison. My primary point was to show how much might torque is being generated due to the large surface area and the radius. Many of the DYI turbines, whether horizontal or verical have very low torques that limit their overall capacity.

[unisailor]

You remember me about Wright brothers! Good job!

[Aceman307]

What about making a Dual axial flux generator they are suppose to be good for slower wind turbines? I am going to try and make one for my VAWT.