Inventors of Omnidirectional Wind Turbine Win James Dyson Award (theguardian.com) 129
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A spinning turbine that can capture wind traveling in any direction and could transform how consumers generate electricity in cities has won its inventors a prestigious international award and ~$38,000 prize. Nicolas Orellana, 36, and Yaseen Noorani, 24, MSc students at Lancaster University, scooped the James Dyson award for their O-Wind Turbine, which -- in a technological first -- takes advantage of both horizontal and vertical winds without requiring steering.
O-Wind Turbine is a 25cm sphere with geometric vents that sits on a fixed axis and spins when wind hits it from any direction. When wind energy turns the device, gears drive a generator that converts the power of the wind into electricity. The students believe the device, which could take at least five years to be put into commercial production, could be installed on large structures such as the side of a building or balcony, where wind speeds are highest. Dyson, who chose the winners, hailed it as "an ingenious concept." He continued: "Designing something that solves a problem is an intentionally broad brief. It invites talented, young inventors to do more than just identify real problems. It empowers them to use their ingenuity to develop inventive solutions. O-Wind Turbine does exactly that. It takes the enormous challenge of producing renewable energy and using geometry it can harness energy in places where we've scarcely been looking -- cities."
O-Wind Turbine is a 25cm sphere with geometric vents that sits on a fixed axis and spins when wind hits it from any direction. When wind energy turns the device, gears drive a generator that converts the power of the wind into electricity. The students believe the device, which could take at least five years to be put into commercial production, could be installed on large structures such as the side of a building or balcony, where wind speeds are highest. Dyson, who chose the winners, hailed it as "an ingenious concept." He continued: "Designing something that solves a problem is an intentionally broad brief. It invites talented, young inventors to do more than just identify real problems. It empowers them to use their ingenuity to develop inventive solutions. O-Wind Turbine does exactly that. It takes the enormous challenge of producing renewable energy and using geometry it can harness energy in places where we've scarcely been looking -- cities."
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Spinning Chimney Cowls
Re:Vertical wind vane (Score:5, Informative)
Nope. At least not in general - there's a lot of vertical wind vane designs. In general though a vertical wind will not cause such a device to spin, which is something this is specifically designed to do, since unlike steady winds, turbulent winds among tall buildings can blow in any direction, not just parallel to the ground.
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Re:Vertical wind vane (Score:5, Funny)
It's obviously revolutionary - it's a turbine! Wouldn't be much good if it didn't revolve.
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There's a link to a youtube video in the summary.
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That's what I thought, too. But actually take a look at the video. The design looks really cool. I'm skeptical it actually works and the video is real, but if it's for real then it's actually a pretty tight propeller design. The vertical wind vanes only are omni-directional in 2D. Theoretically this thing can harvest wind coming from directly above or below it too.
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Excellent, now they can harvest all that vertical wind...
Unfortunately this is not their design, it was designed a long time ago and even tested on a NASA Rover toy..
More unfortunately, itcoversion efficiency, it's mass efficiency AND it's area efficiency all suck, and the idea of a 25cm model generating anything more than trivial power is a joke. A standard self directing propeller is much better efficiency.
It's only 'special' feature is dealing with non horizontal wind, which it does at even lower efficie
Re: Really? (Score:1)
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No. Wind blowing across the turbine on the outside of the roof moves the turbine blades and by design draws air out of an attic. There is no way thermal heat in an attic would move anything reliably. The only real difference between a roof turbine driven by the wind and this article is the expectation of "universal" power factor no matter the wind direction either horizontal or vertical.
http://www.winddriventurboventilator.com/use_of_ventilator.htm
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No. Wind blowing across the turbine on the outside of the roof moves the turbine blades and by design goes "squeak squeak squeak" very loudly. They are extremely efficient in converting wind energy into irritation.
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No. Wind blowing across the turbine on the outside of the roof moves the turbine blades and by design draws air out of an attic. There is no way thermal heat in an attic would move anything reliably.
This is correct, it's not the heat or hot air coming out that causes the blades to turn, it's the wind passing by. The turbine rotates and draws air up and out.
More in depth article in text (Score:5, Informative)
https://newatlas.com/2018-dyso... [newatlas.com]
Seems a little premature to get excited about
The team, from Lancaster University, tested their prototypes with a hairdryer, which was enough to prove its initial efficacy and win the UK national Dyson award a month ago, before being announced as the global winner today.
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Well if you want real power you need to harness the energy of small children, to power those hair dryers in the first place.
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The wind energy available at rooftop level is pitiful.
It will be just as useful when the bearings seize as when it moves.
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This is the James Dyson award. It just needs to look clever, not actually work. He has made millions off of that.
His vacuum cleaners really suck.
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Re:Numbers? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll say this for his vacuums though: we've tried quite a few different bagless designs from various A brands (we provide them to our tenants and we wanted the most maintenance-free option), and so far I would only give the Dyson a passing grade. With many of the others you will spend more time cleaning the air filters than doing any actual vacuuming.
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Are you kidding?! I have had three Dyson vacuum cleaners, one or two of those “bladeless” fans, and one other piece of his garbage. They are crap, don’t last, and really just have a bunch of extra plastic to try to look cool. Everything died within 2 years, but the fans take the cake. Simply no way to clean the high pressure fan, so in a dusty environment it gunks up internally in a couple months and becomes useless.
As for the vacuums, give me a Miele any day; the bags are a feature, no
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Are you kidding?! I have had three Dyson vacuum cleaners, one or two of those “bladeless” fans, and one other piece of his garbage. They are crap, don’t last, and really just have a bunch of extra plastic to try to look cool. Everything died within 2 years, but the fans take the cake. Simply no way to clean the high pressure fan, so in a dusty environment it gunks up internally in a couple months and becomes useless.
As for the vacuums, give me a Miele any day; the bags are a feature, not a bug.
Don’t know what you’re doing wrong but I bought one of the animal cordless Dyson vacuums on Amazon as a refurbished unit. Cost me like $150 and it has been going strong for over 5 years.
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I had an Animal. No, it would not break, it was indestructible. However, it quickly (6 months) hit a "smashing point" where its ability to actually pull dirt and dust up from the floor was a joke. Cleaning out the dirt compartment was a mess, and you had to wash it periodically. Got a Miele canister, which was half the physical size and weight as the Animal, better suction, no mess with emptying, and quieter.
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Oops, missed you were talking about the cordless. Had one of them too. Battery crapped out after a year or so, not enough charge to clean up an 800SF apartment, and useless when it came to carpet. (In fairness, it was a vacation place, so only there once a month and that was understandably harder on the crap battery charger.)
Also replaced it with a Miele.
The vertical turbine efficiency problem (Score:4, Interesting)
Is this device subject to the same problem, which is that at any moment half your vanes are moving INTO the wind?
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>
It works, but it is hardly revolutionary.
It spins. How much more revolutionary can it get?
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Is this device subject to the same problem, which is that at any moment half your vanes are moving INTO the wind?
Yes, but remember why vertical turbines still exist especially in an urban (reads building top) environment, they have other benefits. Efficiency is just one part of the equation.
Re:The vertical turbine efficiency problem (Score:4, Insightful)
But, efficiency does not matter, because the source of energy, the wind, is practically free. So it does not matter if you waste 80% of zero cost thing or 60% of zero cost thing.
Its the cost per megawatt, maintenance etc that will determine its usability. Spins on vertical axis, does not need complex steering mechanism. large towers with super heavy horizontal load on top is not needed. It will cut down the cost a lot. Lots of internal wanes that will improve the structural integrity and you can probably get away with cheaper recycled plastic, reinforced with metal strips would be helpful. The same internal vanes prove a lot more of the "skin" to the airflow increasing the drag (and that is good in this case, more drag, more energy leaving the airstream and transferring to the turbine.)
Some shaping of the vanes, adjusting the gaps and passages, may be eject the air upwards etc might improve the design.
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It matters very much.... if you spend, say, half as much money building these but they only harness 20% as much energy, then it's not a positive return on investment.
Cheaper is always nice, but if you have to make an even greater compromise on efficiency than the amount of money you saved, then you aren't actually getting anything better for your dollar.
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That is the problem. The efficiency will be poorer compared to the propeller type, traditional three blade, wind turbines.
Or to a Savonius turbine, which predates our entire civilization.
But, efficiency does not matter, because the source of energy, the wind, is practically free. So it does not matter if you waste 80% of zero cost thing or 60% of zero cost thing.
Of course it matters. It matters a hell of a lot. That's because...
Its the cost per megawatt, maintenance etc that will determine its usability.
Well, that's part of it. The other part is that even if it makes more sense to spend the money in some other way, we're not working as a team but through competition, so some of these might get built even if it makes no sense whatsoever.
This design fails in three obvious ways. One, the way we're discussing here already. Two, it wastes still more efficiency with gearing. Three,
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Three, it would be be more expensive per MW than current designs just based on its shape.
That is the metric it will live and die by. If its installation cost per MW is too much it will die, without any arguments.
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That is the metric it will live and die by.
Nope. It's the installation cost to the individual that it will live and die by. The installation cost of a superior solution will be lower, but the individual making the purchase decision won't have the reach to make the correct decision, so they will make the most correct decision available to them.
There's no way in hell this is going to surpass existing wind turbine installations made in places where they actually make sense in cost per MW, but it will fit into smaller holes in smaller budgets and that i
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When engineering, sometimes you have to trade efficiency for efficacy.
Windy City (Score:2)
/ me puts forth that Chicago should be the 1st city to test implementation...
Wow, $38000! (Score:5, Funny)
With that much money, they could afford to purchase both a Dyson fan AND a Dyson vacuum cleaner for each of their dorm rooms!
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A guy who had been my boss went on to lead a team who won an award for the same idea: small wind-turbines for city roof tops. The turbine had a different shape though (and was probably much less effective).
He was an alcoholic ... so he spent the prize money on booze.
A vacuum cleaner and a fan would still have been better.
Re: Wow, $38000! (Score:1)
Lol I had no idea college students vacuumed
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so he spent the prize money on booze. A vacuum cleaner and a fan would still have been better.
Disagree.
Pretty cool (Score:5, Insightful)
Nifty idea and I can see a lot of potential applications, especially when these are used in groups of small or medium size turbines.
Props to these guys for working this out.
25cm across (Score:4, Funny)
At 25cm diameter, we can't really go calling it a Dyson Sphere.
Interesting but how does it compare? (Score:2)
The alternative energy centre in Wales has had omnidirectional wind turbines for twenty or thirty years.
This may well be superior in some way or ways, but which ones? To what degree?
Re:Interesting but how does it compare? (Score:5, Insightful)
Vertical axis wind turbines that work with wind coming from any side have been around for a while (though not as large-scale commercial installations.
The new feature here is that this turbine also works with wind coming from below or above.
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The new feature here is that this turbine also works with wind coming from below or above.
Awesome. When I move to a planet with vertical wind, I'll let them know.
slick (Score:5, Insightful)
Award PR (Score:1)
Too much material? (Score:1)
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This.
The simple approximation of power available to a wind turbine involves the mass of air crossing the 'swept area' of the turbine per unit time. There is no escaping the fact that the more power you want, the larger this swept area has to be. Hence the long blades on 'typical' wind machines.
Oh, the bloke who makes vacuum cleaners. (Score:2)
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Yeah, but he has a BRITISH accent, which is cool. Unlike Einstein, whose German accent is evil and reminds us of Nazis...
Clue#1 (Score:2)
5 years to commercialize!
OK so their 1st product will be... wait...wait...wait...wait...wait
DYSON produces the ARTIS CAP for chimney's that SUCKS. thanks to who? It will greatly fix fireplaces that draft poorly or not at all.
wait...wait...wait
The original inventors will not go into electricity
This product looks unprofitable due to inertial mass above the rotational bearing point.
Dimensionally silly... (Score:2)
So this thing takes up 3D space to collect 2D air. Doesn't sound like anything that is going to scale up, it's going to top out at a pretty small size. Propeller efficiency is a very well studied field and this certainly isn't a top performer.
Re: junk (Score:1)
If there are no further questions...
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yeah yeah, externalities
like fucking batteries that wind and solar need but are not counted
(or like needing a normal power station to be idling for when the wind drops or a cloud rolls over)
with wind or solar all the external shit is ignored, the fact that you have to pay more than twice over for unreliable power is ignored by green loons..