How does a wind turbine work? Wind turbines - six times more energy Wind turbine designs and characteristics

To use wind energy need these details:

• wind blades - capture the wind flow, transferring momentum to the wind generator;
• wind generator and controller - contribute to the conversion of the pulse into direct current;
• battery - stores energy;
• inverter - helps to convert direct current to alternating current.

Wind is a form of solar energy. Winds are caused by the uneven heating of the atmosphere by the sun, the irregular structure of the earth's surface and its rotation. The trajectories of the wind flow are changed by the landscape of the earth, masses of water and vegetation. People use the wind or the energy of its movement for many purposes: for sailing, flying a kite, and even for generating electricity. The terms "wind power" and "wind power" describe the process of using wind to generate mechanical energy or electricity. Wind turbines (wind generators) convert the kinetic energy of the wind into mechanical energy, which can be used for a number of specific tasks, such as grinding grain or pumping water.

So how do wind turbines produce electricity? Simply put, a wind turbine works in the opposite direction of a fan. Instead of using electricity to create wind like a fan, wind turbines use wind to generate electricity. The wind turns the blades, which turn a shaft connected to a generator that produces electricity.

This top view of the "wind power plant" shows how a group of wind turbines can produce electricity for consumer grids. Through transmission and distribution lines, it enters homes, businesses, schools, and so on.

Types of wind turbines

Modern turbines fall into two main groups: horizontal-axial and vertical-axial, similar to the "beaters" of the Darrieus model, named after its French inventor. Horizontal axis turbines typically have two or three blades. These three-blade turbines work "upwind", with the blades facing the wind.

The 3.6 megawatt GE Wind Energy turbine is one of the largest ever installed:

Turbines bigger size more efficient. And in terms of price too.

Wind Turbine Dimensions

The size range of "service" scale turbines ranges from 100 kilowatts to several megawatts. Large turbines are grouped together into "wind farms" that carry out wholesale supply electricity in the power grid.

Small single turbines below 100 kW are used to power houses, telecommunications antennas, or power water transfer pumps. Small turbines are sometimes used in combination with diesel generators, batteries and solar panels. These systems are called "hybrid wind systems" and are used in remote locations where connection to the electrical grid is not possible.

Inside a wind turbine

• As for the blades (with a horizontal axis), I liked the article from the magazine "Modeler-Constructor", 1993, No. 8. http://publ.lib.ru/ARCHIVES/M/%27%27Modelist-konstruktor%27%27/%27%27MK%27%27,1993,N08.%5Bdjv-002%5D.zip It is intelligibly painted and principle of action and how to do it.
• Rather than watch such press, it is better to read (thoughtfully) Fateev's book "Wind turbines and wind turbines"
• With regards to industrial wind turbines dzen +1 [B] Three blades as a compromise between On the one hand, the desire to ensure the structural strength of the blades and reduce dynamic loads, reduce the cost of wind turbines by reducing the number of blades, provide allowable level aerodynamic noise and vibrations, which increase with an increase in the speed of movement of the ends of the blades and, on the other hand, the desire to increase the efficiency of the wind turbine, which grows with an increase in the speed of the wind turbine and the number of blades. [I] Textbook "Wind turbines and wind turbines" Fateeva E.M.
• The 3-blade turbine has a constant moment of inertia about the orientation axis, independent of the position of the blades, therefore, when orienting the windmill, vibrations do not occur. 2-blade shakes when orienting.
• RE: Why 3 blades / Vitaliy71 Well, for the first time, the efficiency is just the highest for a single-blade, but it is dynamically unbalanced. And the two-blade sound is blatant, but the three-blade is the last one with a high coefficient, since an increase in the blade over 3 ... 5 DOES NOT CHANGE the efficiency, but it strongly reduces the rotation SPEED, which means material consumption
• Depending on the speed of the windmill, for a maximum of KIEV, there is optimal ratio filling of a wind turbine and depends little on the number of blades, an ideal turbine is an infinite number of infinitely narrow blades. The most balanced are 3, 6, 12, 18, ... , 3 is the minimum number.
• And the sound of the two-blade did not bother me, although I sharpened the wrong edge due to inattention.
• is this about a gigawatt??? But the usual (not caught) wind also causes a wide range of sound vibrations (including INF), chaotically pressing on leaves, tree branches, windows and walls of buildings. And even in an open field, the wind presses on a person’s ears. Thunderstorms and earthquakes are also infrasound generators. Insects and some plants (tumbleweeds) can be carried away by air currents. Ban all this now! :)))
• Yes, this is nonsense, rumors that were financially supported in the 80s by the owners of thermal power plants. The problem with megawatt windmills is that birds (especially in cold weather) stick around and crap them, if there are holes inside, they try to make nests inside. I have seen nests in windmills.
• Lord good afternoon. You have interesting conversations, but I apologize for my question, but did anyone assemble the Gorlov turbine (http://www.quietrevolution.com/) I did it, but it doesn’t spin even in strong winds if anyone knows what the secret is (somewhere there is a raisin where I don't know)
• Looks like another person wants to step on a rake. There is a simple truth, confirmed theoretically and practically, and more than once - all verticals are made for beauty, but not for work.
• This so-called. the throat turbine is a conventional Darrieus rotor twisted into a spiral to reduce sudden short-term loads. But in addition to reducing loads, KIEV falls heavily and therefore, in order for it to spin, it is necessary to make very high-quality blades and have a strong wind. Well, it’s good to use it only for beauty or promotion of some kind of investors for money.
• That is, no one knows what it takes to make it spin?
• Quality blades and strong wind.
• The profile of the blades must be accurate, flat belts will not work. Plus, a good wind and you need to accelerate it to operating speed, the turbine itself will not accelerate even with a good wind. Against a windmill with a horizontal axis, its KIV is almost 3 times less. It looks beautiful, do not say anything :)
• wing airfoil? And for overclocking, you can use the Savonius rotor.
• It has been proven by calculations and practice that the blade profile (chord) should be close to ideal, the front plane reflecting the wind flow along the angle of attack where excess pressure is created can be flat, but the back plane of the blade, in order to create a greater air pressure difference behind the blade than in front of it, it should not be convex evenly creating rarefaction of air masses. Maybe something is wrong?
• Yes, look at any atlas of airfoils and see what they are, these profiles.
• Yes, I am aware of them.
• In large turbines (relatively) the blades are controlled indirectly, from the outside. At least in the Crimea, at the wind farm, the control was from a personal computer, depending on the load, speed, etc.

Incredible! But soon it will happen. Alternative energy sources of the third generation will turn the whole world upside down. The start has already been made. Wind turbines are the electric power future of mankind.

Introduction

Although alternative species energy, such as wind turbines, for example, is still undeservedly little attention, they continue to develop intensively. Perhaps soon powers of the world they will understand that insane mining does more harm than good, and natural species power engineers will firmly enter our everyday life. This hope is closely related to the fact that a third generation wind turbine was announced some time ago.

What is a third generation wind generator

It is traditionally accepted that the first generation of devices that converted wind energy were ordinary ship sails and mill wings. A little over a century ago, with the development of aviation, a second-generation wind generator appeared - a mechanism based on the principles of wing aerodynamics.

It was a breakthrough of that time! Although, if taken as a whole, then second-generation windmills are low-power, because due to design features cannot work in strong winds. Therefore, in order to receive more electricity, it was necessary to increase in size, which entailed additional financial expenses development, production, installation and operation. Naturally, it couldn't stay that way for long.

In the early 2000s, ready-made developers announced the appearance of a third-generation wind generator - a wind turbine. The design, principle of operation, installation, and most importantly, the power of the new device is fundamentally different from its predecessors.

Device

Simplicity. This is exactly the word that can be used to characterize the design of a wind turbine generator. Compared to bladed wind turbines, a wind turbine has a much smaller number of working units and much more fixed elements, which makes it more resistant to various static and dynamic loads.

Wind turbine device:

• fairing, it can be internal and external;
• fairing of the turbogenerator assembly;
• gondola;
• turbine;
• generator;
• dynamic fastener.

From additional systems The wind generator is equipped with inverting, accumulation and control units. There are no systems for adjusting the blades and orienting to the wind, traditional for a bladed wind generator. The latter is replaced by a fairing, which also acts as a nozzle, catches the wind and increases its power. If we take into account that the energy of the wind flow is equal to its speed cubed V3, then due to the presence of a nozzle, this formula looks like this: V3x4 = Ex64. At the same time, due to its cylindrical design, the fairing has the ability to self-adjust to the direction of the wind.

Advantages

Any New Product or an invention must always stand out in a significant way from its predecessors, and necessarily in better side. All this can be said about the new wind generator with a turbo design. One of the main advantages of a wind turbine is its resistance to strong winds. Its design is designed in such a way that it will operate efficiently and safely beyond the limits that are critical for conventional bladed windmills: from 25 m/s to 60 m/s. But this is not the only advantage that a wind turbine has, there are several of them:

1. Absence of infrasonic waves. Finally, scientists managed to solve one of the important issues possessed by wind turbines. It is precisely because of the existence of such side effect APU (wind power plant) was criticized by opponents alternative energy, infrasound adversely affects the surrounding living environment. But now, due to the absence of infrasonic waves, a turbine-type wind generator can be installed even in urban areas.



2. The absence of blades removes several tasks at once that faced the designers and manufacturers of the wind generator. First, significant expenditures of forces and funds for the operational control of bladed windmills are removed. Second, the wind wheel blade is the most complex element wind generator in production. The lion's share of the cost of a conventional wind turbine is the cost of manufacturing the blades. In addition, there are cases when, with strong gusts of wind, the blade broke, scattering fragments hundreds of meters.
3. Easy assembly and installation. All complex structures or components are manufactured and assembled by the manufacturing plant, only final stage assembly and installation on the mast. Plus, the lightness of structural elements makes it possible to use the most common lifting equipment when installing a wind generator.
4. Connection diagram. In contrast to the bladed APU, the turbine is connected via standard scheme. This fact is not affected by the specifications, which puts forward future owner WEU.
5. The long service life is due to the materials from which the wind generator and its individual parts are made. Considering preventive work, which are mandatory for the operation of a wind turbine, the service life of the device can be up to 50 years.



Geography of turbine APU operation

the most real and the best place wind turbine installation will be on the shore of a lake or sea. Near water bodies, such a wind generator will work practically all year round, because thanks to its nozzle device, it is very sensitive to light breezes and other slightest manifestations of wind with a speed of 2 m/s.

With the same success, VST will work within the city, where a conventional wind generator is unable to work for a number of well-known reasons:

1. Insecurity of bladed wind turbines.
2. The infrasound they emit.
3. The minimum wind speed for the operation of a bladed wind generator is 4 m/s.

An interesting fact that proves the advantage of WTU

One of the cornerstones on which the position of opponents of alternative energy is based is that wind farms interfere with the operation of location equipment. During operation, the wind generator interferes with the passage of radio waves. Given the size of individual wind farms, and they can range from several tens to hundreds of square kilometers, it is understandable why the governments of many countries have begun to block alternative energy projects at the state level - this is a direct threat to national security.


For this reason, a French company that manufactures components for wind turbines has taken on difficult task from the point of view of performance - to make the wind power plants directly invisible to radars, and not the space around the wind generator. For this, the experience gained in the manufacture of Stealth aircraft will be used. New components are planned to be launched on the market in 2015.

But where is the fact that proves the advantage of the VST over the bladed wind turbine? And the fact is that wind turbines do not interfere with the operation of location equipment even without expensive Stealth technology.

Prospects for the development of alternative wind energy

The first attempts to start using a wind turbine in industrial scale undertaken in the middle of the last century, but were unsuccessful. This was due to the fact that oil resources were relatively cheap, and the construction of wind power stations was unprofitable. But literally 25 years later, the situation has changed radically.

Alternative energy sources began to develop intensified in the 70s of the last century, after the pace of mechanical engineering increased sharply in the world and countries faced an oil shortage, which led to the 1973 oil crisis. Then, for the first time, the non-traditional energy sector in some countries received state support and the wind turbine began to be used on an industrial scale. In the 80s, the world wind energy began to become self-sustaining, and today countries such as Denmark, Germany and Australia are almost 30% self-sufficient at the expense of alternative sources energy, including wind farms.


Unfortunately, and perhaps, and fortunately, last year's trend in the oil market with an unstable oil price makes us seriously think that the times when cheap oil was good are in the past. Today, for many countries, the cheaper oil is, the more profitable it is to develop non-traditional energy, first of all, this applies to the CIS countries. Therefore, there are prerequisites for the development of wind energy. How it will be - we'll see.