Wind Turbine Design
Overview
Wind turbines populate the landscape in many parts of the world. These systems harness naturally abundant wind and transform it into electrical energy. Turbine blades efficiently convert wind energy into a force which turns a wind turbine. This energy conversion is an application of aerospace engineering principles. In this project my team researched, designed, created, and tested wind turbine blades.
Equipment
We used twenty four balsa wood planks for our third design, and shaped it like an airfoil. As for the dowels we used and estimated amount of 57", as for the connectors we used 21 connectors for all three designs. For the other two designs we used cardboard and made them shaped into a leaf like shape and we curved the other one.
Procedure
The procedures that my partner and I did was we first cut out the cardboard sense it was the easiest thing and quickest thing we could do, with the short amount of time we had. Afterwards we sanded balsa wood into airfoils then we super glued it together. Once we were done sanding and super gluing it together w
Design Sketches
Construction
First we sketched each individual piece on the two pieces of cardboard after when all the sketches were drawn we cut each piece. For the twelve blade design we got the balsa wood then glued two pieces together afterwards we started to sand it down until it had the shape of the airfoil design. Once we cut the sketches and airfoil blades we began to test.
Final Design and Results
Testing Sheet
Reflection
Henry and I came up with the design once we examined the "Advance Blade Manual", as well as thinking on how the airfoil is important to the plan we assumed it'll work with the wind turbine. We modified some designs like design two, because we realized that we were not able form a twist with the little amount of time that we had left for the assembling part of the project. It turned out to be our best design once we modified it. The materials affected the performance of the designs by slowing them down, for example when we used the balsa wood it turned out to be the slower then when we used the cardboard.