Blog #3: Prototype

 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 days, before we actually start the contruction of our blades, we are going to make more of a helical shape (shown below) to try to omit more drag. We will do this out of thin plastic because that will mimic aluminum sheeting the most accurately (our final blade material).





Comments

  1. Maria SteinerMay 26, 2021 at 8:40 AM

    Looks like some of your media didn't post. Maybe this video will help? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuzNvBWaPy0

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