Would be interesting to see the environmental impact on birds from such a thing. Wind turbines kill a lot of birds, at a much slower speed. Those vibrating sticks would do more damage I assume

BS. Vehicles, windows and cats independently kill thousands of times more birds a year than all the world wind turbines combined.

So are you a university ran chat bot or some private company prototype system?

As constantly irrelevantly stupid as most of your replies are I am rather thinking you're a government ran system. Not sure who's government but as idiotic and poorly researched as your posts subject matter is you gotta be some governments toy.

You're definitely not Google driven as we can see that for obvious reasons!

 

A flexing pole, whether solid or tubular isn't moving a magnetic field to induce/ generate electrical power on one of these, that I can tell, and I don't see any capability of the base it is attached to for production of electrical power. I think the "bladeless" stipulation clearly removes is from the class of machines known as turbines.

I live within a few miles/km of the bridge that they refer to, and see all sorts of stupid scams somehow referring to it for whatever purpose, as though it was some magical other-worldly phenomenon and denied by leaders of the other political party or whomever.

Sorry to have fed any bots needlessly, or otherwise bent any shafts. I was kinda hoping someone would have been able to reply, telling us of some known mechanism that is simply not evident.

 

A flexing pole, whether solid or tubular isn't moving a magnetic field to induce/ generate electrical power on one of these,

Yes, it is:
https://www.wired.com/2015/05/future-wind-turbines-no-blades/

ak

 

I understand the oscillating vane moves a magnet in a coil, at the base.

Here are some other "blade-less turbines"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_turbine

http://newatlas.com/bladeless-ceiling-fan-exhale/24942/

 

A flexing pole, whether solid or tubular isn't moving a magnetic field to induce/ generate electrical power on one of these, that I can tell, and I don't see any capability of the base it is attached to for production of electrical power. I think the "bladeless" stipulation clearly removes is from the class of machines known as turbines.

it depends on your definition of "turbine". If you think a turbine has to have blades then bladeless turbine is an oxymoron.

If however you view a turbine as an energy conversion device, then bladeless turbine is entirely possible.

In this case, it is converting winder energy into resonance of the "stick". To help define the resonance, there are magnets in the base, according to the article. That's entirely within the sphere of physics at that point.

After that, it gets a little fuzzy, about the alternator magnifying the frequency, etc. likely the fault of a journalism major.

So ruling it out, based on the information provided (poorly) so far, seems a little too rushy, in my view.

There are other practical questions, like for example how well does the stick maintain its resonance across a range of wind speed? its efficiency? its environmental pollution? ...

Btw none of that points to a fatal flaw in the design itself - which seems to be what you are asking.

 

After that, it gets a little fuzzy, about the alternator magnifying the frequency, etc. likely the fault of a journalism major.

All alternators "magnify" (actually, multiply) frequency.

ak

 

Yes, it is:
https://www.wired.com/2015/05/future-wind-turbines-no-blades/

ak

That's a better description in the WIRED article: windings at the root of the mast. I can understand that, and it's actually using moving parts, a rotor and stator essentially. Thanx.

 

If however you view a turbine as an energy conversion device, then bladeless turbine is entirely possible.

I'm in that camp. A turbine extracts energy from fluid flow and converts it to shaft work. Virtually all turbines accomplish this with rotating blades, but I don't see that as a required part of the definition.

Unfortunately my more inclusive definition would include sails as turbines. Maybe the common usage that requires rotating parts is more useful after all.

 

I'm in that camp. A turbine extracts energy from fluid flow and converts it to shaft work. Virtually all turbines accomplish this with rotating blades, but I don't see that as a required.....Maybe the common usage that requires rotating parts is more useful after all.

I'd say so. It's unclear as to whether the vertical mast flexes in a circular pattern, bows likes a person twirling a "hula hoop" around their waist, or vibrates or whatever. I guess we'll see in time.

One of the bigger costs of the currently common style of wind turbine generator is maintenance and stress failures of metallic parts. If this new, yet seen, "bladeless" unit oscillates or flexes it too will have stress cracking and failure of stressed parts.

 

Unfortunately my more inclusive definition would include sails as turbines.

Nothing wrong with that. Windmills have sails.

 

One of the bigger costs of the currently common style of wind turbine generator is maintenance and stress failures of metallic parts.

a lot of that comes from cutting corners on design and manufacturing and trying to push things to the edge. There were many wind generator manufacturers back itne 1930's that designed machines that even today are still running with having had minimal mataincaenand service work don to them in 70 - 80+ years.

The problem as many see in those designs is that they are simple but big, heavy, and expensive to build for their given outputs so they designed new ones that are more complex plus smaller, lighter, have higher outputs but tend to break down a lot because of those attributes they engineered out of the old designs.

Also after purchase service work is actually the bigger money maker for most companies anyway. If you design something that cost x amount of dollars and brings you in 10 - 20x in cash flow from Y number of years service work in it's lifetime VS designing something that sells for 3X but brings you in 3x more cash flow over an extremely long 3Y+ service lifetime you don't make near as much money per unit nor do you sell near as many units either.

 

rotor and stator essentially.

Earlier water turbines are bladeless: high pressures water comes into the center of the turbine and goes out through nozes along the cross sections of the turbine, generating rotating motion.

Those water turbines are very much like vented disc brake rotors on modern vehicles.

 

hose water turbines are very much like vented disc brake rotors on modern vehicles.

No they are not.

 

I live within a few miles/km of the bridge that they refer to, and see all sorts of stupid scams somehow referring to it for whatever purpose, as though it was some magical other-worldly phenomenon and denied by leaders of the other political party or whomever

The bridge that they refer to was destroyed in 1940. You likely live next to its replacement which was built in 1950 and expanded in 2007. The destruction was very real and not a "scam".

 

The bridge that they refer to was destroyed in 1940. You likely live next to its replacement which was built in 1950 and expanded in 2007. The destruction was very real and not a "scam".

The failed bridge is well known, and featured in textbooks such as used in civil, structural, and mechanical fields. Resonance and aeroelasticity are taught as the primary destructive mechanisms for it's failure. The roles of either and both in fact remain questioned and debated.

I live within walking distance of many things you know not of, including:
- some still present remains of "galloping Gertie" (and yes, there was some re-use!)
- the replacement Narrows Bridge
- the "3rd" or "Big 3" which is immediately adjacent to the second Narrows Bridge, atop some ruins, and is an "Eastbound only" toll bridge.

But associated scams and conspiracy theories abound,,, which would apparently appeal to your lack of attention to detail/ comprehension of text.....

 

a healthy dose of skepticism is good. just don't go overboard. the fact that you cannot see how it works at first isn't by itself to claim it to be a fraud. it may very well be a bad idea but having an open mind is important in understanding new things in life, as this example shows.

 

Well, the Guardian article was a better investigation and description than the piece I linked in my OP, but the 1911.pdf gives the best info, calc's and analysis.

Thanks for that link spook.

What this thread unfortunately seems to have descended into is babble about "what you call a blade (or vane) isn't what I call a blade!".

It seems that we may well see increasing use of the vertical axis type units that offer a smaller footprint and generator hardware on the ground for easier installation and maintenance. It's doubtful that they'll get quite the power output levels though that we'd like to have adding to our power grid.

What I still don't understand, is how that limited motion by vertical, oscillating vanes is going to generate electrical power. We use rotating shafts to generate power. The only notable exception is solar. I cannot believe that the motion of that vertical vane, around that vertical axis is going to move any element past a stator with a good enough magnetic field and good enough armature to field magnetic coupling to crank out real power. It is my understanding that the big 3-blade, 100m tall wind turbines being used worldwide today all use substantial, heavy gearboxes to turn a generator shaft at a far higher speed than the prime mover, because of the need to acquire that magnetic field action in the generator. Do you think that using a crankshaft to turn the input end of a fairly high ratio gearbox, to turn the shaft of a generator is the most viable means to convert that oscillating mass action into usable electrical power? The losses in that gearbox are substantial. Is a different mechanism viable? It seems as though we can't do better than rotors in the 100-10,000 rpm range for doing our work, of whatever sort.

 

This isn't generating power. It's harvesting it.

 

This isn't generating power. It's harvesting it.

Wow

 

This isn't generating power. It's harvesting it.

Well yes, but using that power to move mass (crankshaft/armature and conductors with their magnetic fields), to generate electrical power.

Since we don't use the power of the wind (again moving mass, but the mass is air) directly, or store that mass in a moving or potential condition, it's harvested continuously for continuous immediate application to another body.

Ha, ha, more babble about grammar (or language). I'm wondering if the vane itself could directly move a magnetic field across conductors to get the crankshaft and possible gearbox out of the process and get higher conversion efficiency thereby. If the vane oscillates in a circular pattern, above a pivot, an extension beyond that pivot, or the root of the vane itself in the area just above the pivot could be wound and act as the armature of the generator. The problem seems (to me) to be the movement of the axis.