Would blades inspired by palm trees be suitable to AWES?

Engineering Blade design
1

The following links describe a method for lighter and larger blades working like palm trees in order to be resilient from high winds.


image

Perhaps some applications in AWES could be imagined, knowing the global loads issue could be mitigated with appropriate bridling, starting with a central line for the hub. Then several options would include torque transfer TRPT rotor in @Rodread’s way, or yo-yo mode (recovery phase by the third position). Perhaps keeping lift (without lifter kite) would be possible with a cyclically controlled bridling.

This topic could also be connected to Info on different methods for making rigid propellers, wind turbine blades, wings and similar.

3 Likes
2

Old concept ladies. Often imitated, sometimes duplicated, but so far they haven’t caught on. A company called “The Wind Turbine Company”
http://www.windturbinecompany.com/technology.html
raised funding about 15 years ago and built a very large prototype near a friend of mine’s house in Lancaster, California. This turbine quickly destroyed itself. One more example of building a big version before you have a proven small version. Since wind is invisible, would-be designers can imagine whatever optimal, problem-free behavior they wish for, but their wishes often do not reflect real-world behavior. The turbine I mentioned ended up as a heap of scrap on the ground. Two-bladed rotors spin even faster than 3-blade rotors. The tower’s “wind shadow” hits the blades like a hard “smack”, ripping the machine apart.

1 Like
3

The search term segmented ultralight morphing rotor gives these results, among many others.

Models used for the simulation and control of a segmented ultralight morphing rotor (SUMR)

https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/6.2019-1298 | https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/6.2019-1299

https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/pdf/10.2514/6.2012-3270

4

A post was merged into an existing topic: Questions and complaints about moderation.

5

Our mission is to conceptualize, design and demonstrate morphing technologies for 50-megawatt wind turbines that can reduce offshore levelized cost of energy by as much as 50% by 2025.

Offshore wind is an incredible energy resource. For wind power to continue its major role in American energy independence, we need to create larger wind turbines with lower energy costs.

Traditional upwind blades are too expensive and too heavy to avoid striking their towers. This problem becomes more and more challenging as production wind turbines are scaled up to extreme sizes.

How can one adapt turbine designs to suit such extreme scales? Our team of researchers and windpower experts has discovered that a design which morphs and sways with the wind can align with the blade path, dramatically reducing structural requirements. This go-with-the-flow design approach was bio-inspired by palm trees, whose trunks can align with the wind, surviving hurricane force winds.

1 Like