Innovative wind turbine design triples output

coolest looking wind turbine i have ever seen !!! just watched their youtube video...looks very impressive..can't wait to purchase one when it comes out for my home.

Is the CEO really "Stanley Kowalski"? That's either a tip-off that the design is fiction or a marvelous curiosity.

But regardless of the CEO's name, I'd be extremely wary of this latest entry into the field of ducted turbines. To quote from Paul Gipe's _Wind Energy Basics_, "Do augmented turbines work? Yes, of course. Cup anemometers work, too, but we don't use them to produce electricity. Why? Because cup anemometers can't compete with modern high-speed turbines. The same is true with ducted turbines. They have been tried--time and again--and found wanting.... One outspoken critic of diffuser augmentation is Professor Heiner Dorner at the University of Stuttgart's Institute of Aircraft Design. Sure, Dorner says, wind tunnel tests show you that a duct can double the wind speed across the rotor. But for this to happen, the wind must flow directly into the concentrator, a condition found in a wind tunnel--but only rarely in the real world. Yes, he says, the complete ducted assembly can turn to face changes in wind directly, but rarely accurately enough. Thus, the concentrating effect will be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve in operation.... Over the years augmented and ducted turbines have never produced the amount of energy promised at the cost promised. They have never fulfilled their often highly touted claims."

I should acknowledge that I work at Gipe's publisher. Anyway, before someone goes and invests a lot of money in this new venture, I'd recommend they ask to see some verifiable results from a prototype in the field. True, the soundtrack won't be as exciting as in that promo video above, but the bottom line will look a lot better when the adrenaline isn't doing the thinking for you.

Seriously awesome!!! Jonathan, before pouring cold water over these people, why don't you let them actually test the thing, and hopefully prove the naysayers wrong!

I agree with George I.
It is a relatively easy life being a professional cynic, pouring cold water and sniping at others attempts to move technology forward. Try making something new and improved, its a lot more rewarding and better for society.

Har--I'll take that push-back in the friendly way that it sounds like it was given. Two points in my defense: first, if you knew me better you'd know I'm far from a professional cynic. For example, I believe the folks who say that properly managed and pastured animals can be carbon negative through the creation of new topsoils (see carbonfarmersofamerica.com for example) and I believe that biochar can also be used responsibly to draw additional carbon out of the atmosphere.

Second, my cynicism in this case stems from the fact that the proposed "revolutionary advance" in wind turbine design shares many identical features with numerous designs from previous years, none of which was able to test out as legit. It's not impossible that this thing will deliver as promised, or even vaguely like promised, but the onus is on the salesman to actually conduct the tests and have viable evidence to show, not on the customer to hand over money based on a snazzy artists rendering of an concept. The real issue for me isn't that Kowalski and company have produced their marketing materials--more power to them!--it's that the BW Green Business blog has too credibly (in my opinion) allowed itself to be a PR outlet for FloDesign. I expect BW to be more journalistic than that.

I personally assisted some years ago here in Brazil to some similar experiments. They were non-conclusive. Prof. Dorner and Jonathan got it right.

This might work for some short moments on a very windy day on some street corner in N.Y. City.

If some oxygen-burning combustion were added (principle of the jet engine or "Staustrahlrohr"), something may come out of all this one day. But the hurdle there will be to have cheap enough burning material to end up with a "profitable operation".

As it now stands, I would not put any money into it. Nevertheless, somebody should continue trying, of course!

I think this is partially a question of what metrics you use. The claim of 3x efficiency depends on:

1. what free stream area you are using for the calculations
2. what baseline 'unducted' design you are comparing to

Betz says you can convert 59% of the free stream area captured in the Cp value for the turbine:

Pshaft = 0.5*rho*Cp*Area*Velocity^3
Pshaft/Pwind = Cp

Most unducted turbines top out around Cp=45% and average something less. To say 3x on the same area obviously is impossible, but clearly their design draws from a larger free stream area (just like a venturi tube).

Since the MIT testing report does not seem to be available to the public, the questions are:

a. Is the baseline comparison an unducted turbine of the same blade diameter or is some other size comparison used?

b. Is the baseline comparison an optimized unducted turbine, or did they just model their turbine with the shroud off?

c. How does the 3x factor change with wind conditions?

If they can really get 3x on a constant blade diameter comparison, then they might be able to justify the added material cost of the FloDesign turbine but I just don't see enough science to justify that claim yet.

Guys,
I work for a turbine maker, these flowdesign guys are absolutely real. We have verifiied their performance and frankly, our management is freaking out. We're banking on the fact that they'll run out of cash. We invest $100M in order to launch a new turbine. This economy will kill them. I would love to work for them, they just don't have the cash to survive in my opinion. it's a big gamle. I don't think they'll make it. We know the us gov just awarded them $8M, they'll never get far on certification on that budget. If they keep going, we'll just buy them, i'm certain of that. I just hope it's not squashed, I am convinced on the idea, my management wants us to wait for them run out of cash and scoop them up. I hate capitlism. Sometimes good ideas are simply, too good.

I watched the video and get it. If this doesn't get launched its becaus the big guys wanted it stoppd My brother lives in texas by a wind farm, the fikin things are always broken. This is simple and will work a long time. Why are you so convinced it won;t wrk? My dad wants to invest in them. He's an engineer and suggested I invest too. Why do you think we fly in jets today and not airplane? Duh??

I want one, it just looks really cool. I will put it on my car. I don't care if it doesn' work, i will put it in my living room/ It look like it might be noisy, i'm not a scientist, but, why wouldn't the cover make it louder?

How can anyone say they are 'real' without numerical data to compare for the 3x claim? Maybe they are, and maybe they aren't. But until that is published, just stating MIT's name because they did some unpublished scale model testing of a FloDesign design doesn't cut it in terms of science. If someone has a published ref I'd be interested to see it.

If 3x

Cp = 45% is current SOA for unducted
Cp = 59% is theoretical limit

then

3x = (59%*Area_FloDesign)/(45%*Area_Unducted)

Area_FloDesign/Area_Unducted > 2.29X

therefore

R_FloDesign/R_Unducted > 1.5X = sqrt(2.29)

If, more rationally, the FloDesign Cp is no better than unducted then the radial comparison is really:

R_FloDeisgn/R_Unducted > 1.73X = sqrt(3)

So:

1. Are they drawing from at least 73% larger radius free-stream area?

2. How much of a hit in terms of energy lost from the ducting are they taking which may reduce their Cp below that of an optimized unducted turbine?

3. Is the added cost of the ducted hardware less than 3x that of an optimized unducted 3-blade design of the same blade diameter?

Not that Wikipedia itself is scientifically peer-reviewed, it does reference peer-reviewed publications. See below for an explanation of the use of captured area, Cp, and efficiency when referencing Betz:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betz'_law

Also, I should note that I don't think the rear cowl area can be considered part of the control volume with regards to Betz limit calculations because the energy conversion (i.e. transfer of energy from wind to shaft) occurs in the front section before the additional flow volume enters.

The rear cowl does definitely add gross, if not net, value to the product as is qualitatively demonstrated by the video by enhancing the flow velocities, but that doesn't change the area and volume going through the front section (only the velocity of it) where the energy conversion occurs.

Don't get me wrong, I think this is an interesting engineering concept to consider. I just feel the marketing hype is leading and distorting the science at the moment with the 3x claim.

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Guys, why dont we just wait and see how this whole thing goes about. Isn't it pretty obv. that one would test drive a lamborgini before actually investing in one? Check if its efficient and worth the money.

Ed, Johnathan absolutely agree with your statements. However, don't you think its way better to see if they can actually deliver what they promised.

As John said, these guys need trucks of cash! If such articles can help them get it, why oppose?

If they fail, US looses money... if they succeed, The World gains a life!

Wind Turbines