A couple of days ago I had a post about large vs small wind turbine research. Today I have a video of one of the more well-engineered smaller-scale designs, the Helix Wind Turbine. As you can see the blades are vertical on their shaft and shaped to make the most of a little wind. They can be mounted lower and aren’t nearly as bothered by low-level turbulence. Note the smooth-changing curve of the blades, giving them winglike lift properties. Notice further that the helical structure (something like DNA) is the shape that gives the blade much more surface area in a smaller volume than a standard propeller-type blade, enhancing this lift/drag ratio. Further note that, of course, the whole structure never has to waste time or energy turning “into the wind” because it’s always perfectly aligned for any wind direction and doesn’t have to respond in any way to the typical quickly-varying wind direction. And it’s Quiet! I found this video over at YouTube. For more, do a search there on helix wind turbine.
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