This article has been written to benefit other academic tutors:
Wind turbines with folding blades – when the wind speed is too high: This is a very cunning system which uses the centripetal force on the blade as a feedback system. This means that the turbine can be applied in winds of up to 150 mph, and will reduce volume of noise at fewer than 250mph.
Previous designs of wind turbines, as indicated by fellow tutors, used mechanical gears to constrain the angular speed of the blade output for the input to the generator. Proven power techniques have solved this problem by using a magnetic gearbox which greatly reduces the noise from the turbines allowing them to be positioned closer to peoples’ housess.
The latest development in wind fuelled turbines is the micro turbine which is small enough to be attached to peoples’ residencess; the main maker of these turbines is a company called windsave. The website of windsave claims that expenditures will be covered within five to seven years. These predictions however are based on an typical wind speed of 12.5ms-1 which is totally unrealistic for an average residential property. This year wind measurement was tested on level 8 of the Blackett laboratory at Imperial College and on a calm day the wind speed varied between 0 and 2.5 ms-1 and on a windy day it varied between 1 and 7 ms-1. The wind velocity was never the same as the wind gusted rather than giving a constant flow. The wind turbine is said to cut in at between 3.5 and 5 ms-1 which means that the turbine will not be producing electricity for very much time.
The failure of micro turbines is due to the size of the area swept by the blades to be too small. The fuel of the wind is proportional to the cube of the wind speed as shown in the equation below:
Where Pwind = power of the wind
Rho =ï€ density of the wind
A = area swept by turbine
v = velocity of the wind
For academic tutors this means that for a small limit in the area swept by the blades there is a much greater decrease in the input fuel to the turbine. As windsave turbines are only 1.75m in diameter they are going to be able to power very little as to power a 3 bedroom house a 3.5 m diameter turbine is required approximately 10m from the ground in a windy location. The doubling in diameter leads to a four fold incrlimit in power. Solar panels on the other hand seem like a far better option for private homess that want to save money and be environmentally friendly according to people who have written into ‘newsnight’ on BBC2.
Are solar panels economically viable and a better alternative to wind powered turbines? Solar panels are to be used in this nation to at least heat the water of housess and in some cases light inhabited buildings.
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