Slow Chat

Shhh, it’s in the Scottish “Area-51”, Loch Ness!

If there’s any new craft being built on Loch Ness it should be an inflated ride on Nessie (converted banana boat)
That would have 1000s of tourists paying for the photo

1 Like

Ok bit of and update,
Looks like I get way too excited!
Heres the website,
http://highlandsystems.me/kronos-submarine/
If anything it UAE? Yes, I did get the monster hunting reference.
Almost as bad a George poking his dragon. A complete saint!
Have no idea why they want to call it after a Greek Titan?
Unless there inferring to begin swallowed by the ocean or three?
If omens are anything to go by it don’t bode well?
I guess we shall have to see? if the get beaten and thrown into the pits of engineering Tartarus? They would have to be Hermes to escape that sort of fate! I wish them luck anyway!

Roddy I think you just hit your next million-dollar idea! :slight_smile:

1 Like

I’m worried about the logistics and obvious humour though Doug.
It’s so cold on Loch Ness that nobody would come off that ride with a monster between their legs.
#toorude

1 Like

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl: lol. Skol to the monster banana boat of lock ness!

https://swel.eu/

I remember @Rodread post something based on cuttlefish few months back. Happened across this. Didn’t know if anyone was aware. I wonder where AWEs version is? But loving the idea. I’m surprised they didn’t use eccentrics or a ratchets mech. With a planetary gear set. Especially in mind of magnetic gearing and low friction joints. I’m sure they will have there reasons. why they did what they did?
Enjoy.

Debunking alert:
This video had me fooled for a while. “Wow”, I was thinking, “this is like what somebody should have built 100 years ago!”. But then I put a little more thought into it:

  1. The slats seem to follow the water level a little too exactly. If energy were being extracted, there would have to be some resistance of the slats to following the water level. The “plank walkway” would have to try to stay straight, to some degree, or else it would not be extracting any power.
  2. Like the Betz coefficient for wind, the turbine slows the air going through it, forcing a lot of the wind to just go around it, so it can;t collect all the energy in the wind. This should behave similarly. We should see some resistance being presented to the wave, and some evidence of the wave(s) reacting to the obstacle presented by the “plank walkway”. Instead we see 100% compliance with the water surface - seems unlikely.
  3. Once the view transitioned to underwater, then X-ray vision of the inner workings, I realized this is just another “rendering”, which of course can act however the artist dictates, without necessarily reflecting reality.
  4. I also noticed maybe the apparatus is longer than it needs to be, with the literal following of the surface contours of the water possibly unnecessary - overkill?.
  5. The inner workings look like they could become quickly clogged by corrosion, seaweed, floating trash, fishing tackle, barnacles, etc.
  6. It would be fun to try to run across though… :slight_smile:
3 Likes

The spine would need to stay horizontal and resist the movement of the waves so that would dictate a minimum length of several (long) waves I think. There are more videos on their channel with test systems being tested. This one for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxCw--rbL04 Here you can see there is some delay before the floats come down again. I’m sure there is more information available elsewhere if someone is interested.

It might not be swel? but you get the idea. The ideas been around awhile. there seems to be several on google patents.
Have fun.

1 Like

As a gadget-oriented person, not to mention a surfer, I’ve always found the idea of harnessing wave energy compelling. On big days out there, the waves are literally the size of a freight train tipping over on your head, and you become like a water-rat, frantically trying to tunnel under one wave after another, before you run out of air.
BUT
In all the years of wave energy devices being tested, it seems they never catch on. I’m left wondering if there is really enough energy in the waves to be worth trying to harness. Maybe it just SEEMS like a lot of power, but when measured it is just not enough to bother chasing(???)

An interesting aspect occurred to me: The series of planks (a dock?) is TRYING to stay straight. Power is being produced by the FALLING WEIGHT of the floats suspended between wave crests. (Energy generated as portions of the “dock” sag downward by their own weight) While the appearance is compelling, I’m not sure that is really the most effective way of extracting energy from waves… Seems like the power that could be extracted would be limited to the weight of the floats times the distance each float is lowered, leaving a lot of energy in the water. :slight_smile:

Its a little bit like the betz limit. If you extract the whole wave, there’s no movement in your harvesting device. So one must leave some residual untapped energy. Or do it in more than one step.

Full extraction would leave the water flat. Seems very hard to me to accomplish

Hi Tallak: A “Betz Coefficient” for wave energy is a new idea for me. Not sure if anyone has contemplated such before. Not sure it is valid, as wave energy may be more like photons than a flow. Wind must exit the area of the rotor somehow, leaving energy in the exiting flow. Waves? Hmmm, not so sure. An interesting question! :slight_smile:

Another aspect of Betz with a wind turbine is the rotor reaching a steady-state of energy extraction, which slows the wind, forming a bubble of slower air in front of the turbine, that then forces air to “go around” the turbine instead of going through the turbine. Not sure how that might relate to waves. Maybe someone has examined this idea in the past, but it is not anything I’ve ever heard about. Could it be possible there is a similar, but different, effect that somehow precludes full energy extraction from a wave? Hmmm, inquiring minds would like to know! :slight_smile:

The Betz coefficient relates to a planar disc region of energy extraction. As you point out, the wave energy extraction device under consideration is long, constituting “multiple steps” or at least a continuous, non-planar region of extraction (at least non-planar perpendicular to the flow). Seems valid that if the water is left flat, you have extracted all the energy. I don’t see anything preventing that, although getting the water to be 100% completely flat might have its challenges.

The patent linked above seems as good a place as any to start learning about it if you are interested. There is also Google and similar.

I would assume some part of the wave is reflected…

This is a link to demonstrate something: Random Engineering, Physics, ..., Concepts and Ideas - #213 by Windy_Skies

HtmlDigest7.html (405.1 KB)

@dougselsam said:

Wow you lost me, Windy. I saw a passage about wood, assumed somebody here, surprisingly, had some actual knowledge or experience, then saw it is apparently something I wrote long ago. No wonder it sounded so accurate to me! :0…
I have trouble when you move messages to other topics. Hard enough to be here when one realizes how much time it drains from your day, but then when the messages get shifted around to various topics, it just leaves me hanging. Oh well, like my Mom used to say, "If it were anything important… " (I forgot the rest of what she said, but it was probably appropriate.)