Wind Turbine Essay

Over the years my family has taken numerous road trips across the country. During these trips we would pass through countless wind farms which would peak my curiosity. Therefore, I decided to do some research into wind turbines.

A wind turbine is a device that converts kinetic energy from the wind into mechanical energy. If the mechanical energy is used to produce electricity, the device may be called a wind generator, wind charger or wind turbine. If the mechanical energy is used to drive machinery, such as for grinding grain or pumping water, the device is called a windmill or wind pump (Niki 2007). Today modern wind turbines typically have three blades. The blades are usually colored light gray to blend in with the clouds and range in length from 20 to 40 meters or more. The tubular steel towers range from 60 to 90 meters tall. The blades rotate at 10-22 revolutions per minute. At 22 rotations per minute the tip speed exceeds 91 meters per second (Rosenbloom, 2006). The modern horizontal-axis, three-bladed wind turbine can be divided into three main components. First, the rotor component, which includes the blades for converting wind energy to low speed rotational energy. Second is the generator component, which includes the electric generator, the control electronics, and most likely a gearbox component for converting the low speed incoming rotation to high speed rotation suitable for generating electricity. The control system engages protective features to avoid damage at high wind speeds. Finally, the structural support component includes the tower and rotor yaw mechanism that turns the turbine towards the wind. (Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, 2006)

While studying wind turbine rotor blades, I noticed tha...

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...will enable the turbines to generate more electricity. These improvements would not take the wind turbine rotational speeds above their maximum of 22 rotations per minute. However, it should allow the operators to get higher rotational speeds from wind speeds that would not currently take the rotational speeds up to the maximum.

In order to prove this theory, I would work to design an experiment where a variety of winglet designs could be installed onto a scale model of a wind turbine. I would then place the wind turbine into a wind tunnel without any winglets to determine a control. While the turbine is in the wind tunnel, I would measure the amount of power produced for a set amount of time at a constant wind speed. Once I had a control group, I would repeat the process in the same manner with a variety of winglet designs, winglet orientations, and wind speeds.