Blog #2

During the first week of our senior project, we got off to a little bit of a slow start. With all three of us having AP tests as well as other conflicts, we did not have a full day of work with all of us there. That being said, we were still able to get some quality work done. First, we cleared out the path that connected High Camp near the top of the bridge to the service road the Bio-Barn will be located on. 



As you can see, the path is still not completely clear. There are still a few trees that are in the way, but with the tools we had (just loppers) we were not able to cut them down. At some point in the coming week, Mr. Harris or Mr. Digiorgio will bring in a chainsaw and we will be able to clear it out completely.

The second task we completed was figuring out the height we are legally allowed to build the wind turbine without needing to work through zoning restrictions. After a quick call to the Chesterland Zoning Department, and a very helpful Michael Joyce, we figured out that our max build height will have to be 35'. While this is not ideal for wind speeds and therefore energy production, it is still high enough that our wind turbine will be effective.

Lastly, put together a list of materials and finished up our research. A big part of the challenge we face is actually getting the blades and motor high enough and making its support sturdy enough so it doesn't fall in high winds. We plan on doing this with a combination of guy wires and strong concrete footings. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blog #7

Image
Over the last few days, after the scraping of our wind turbine, we began working with the Bio-Barn Raising Intensive. For the most part, we just carried things out to the barn sight and oversaw some of the younger students in the intensive. Probably the most involved job we were tasked with was leveling spots on the ground by the barn site so that posts could be placed over them evenly. We did this by first digging down, then putting a layer of gravel on top. We then followed this by placing concrete pylons with a four inch by four inch groove for posts to sit. We started with the pylon that was the highest already without any gravel. We added gravel, then made it level to the ground. Then we began working on the other ones, leveling each by itself, then off the starting pylon. We did this until each of the 12 pylons was level. Then we put together the framing of the pavilion that the intensive had set up inside earlier and began placing the posts into the pylons, reinforcing each wall...
Read more

Blog #3: Prototype

Image
 Over the course of the last few days, we made a working prototype of our wind turbine.  As you can see, we generated less than a volt of electricity, but for such a small scale design and using a portable fan as a source of wind, that is not a bad start. Since then, we have made a few adjustments. for example, in the original design, we noticed that the rotational speed was being negatively impacted by the blade shape. When the wind would blow (the fan) it would catch in the large pockets, but before it could rotate up to the point where the next pocket would catch the air, the wind would hit the back of the next blade. To try and counteract this, instead of having the leading edge of the blade point in the opposite direction of the rotation, with pointed it towards the direction of rotation. We hoped this would catch the wind before it could hit the back of the blade. I think in the end, it created more drag, making the turbine get caught even more.  Over the next few d...
Read more