By: Team Flying Plutos (Callie, Chance, and Grace M) Science Windturbine By: Team Flying Plutos (Callie, Chance, and Grace M)

Introduction The goal of this project was to make the best wind turbine. To make it the “best” wind turbine, the turbine has to have maximum efficenty. In this project the turbine’s goal was to get the highest efficenty in the class.

Obstacles faced The obstacles in this project was getting the materials, getting them cut into the correct shape, and keeping the blades together. To fix this problem the blades were not cut, the materail were got during the last week and hot glue was used to get the blades together. The weight of the blades were too heavy stressing the hot glue pulling the blade away from the dowel rod to where they wouldn’t stay together making it complicated to test. To fix this WD40 was used on the blades to make them stay.

Material and Shape of Blades The material used for the blades is high polymer plexiglass. Important things while building the blades were deciding what material to use, and the weight of the materials. The plexiglass was used to be light weight but, it was not. In the future, plexiglass would not be a material to build wind turbine blades out of. The shape of the blades are rectangles. The original shape was going to be different, but the plexiglass wouldn’t cut. The original plan was to have the blades rounded at the end so that the blades would be more like fan blades. Modern wind turbines have blades shaped like airfoils because of the way they are formatted it helps catch more of the wind. The blades used for this project were not shaped like airfoils because the plexiglass wouldn’t cut.

Number and Length of Blades There are 4 blades, the number of blades were determined by the size of the blades because only 4 blades would fit. No tests were done to decide how many blades to use. In the furture, a smaller material would be advised because with the longer, thicker material, there is only enough room for a few blades. Each of the blades are 22 cm in length, and 10 cm in width, .635 cm in depth/thickness. The length was decided when a model was made to decide on a size.

Angle and Friction For the angle used about 45 degree angle it varied from test to test. With a shallower angle it didn’t spin as fast but with a deeper angle it it also had a loss of speed. So the best degree we found was a 45 degree angle. With the prototype there were some problems with the friction because of the weight of the blades, dragging down making it not being able to move. To make it spin with less friction the rods were sprayed with WD40.

Balance of the Blades, Power Output, and Changes The blades were balanced to within a couple of grams of each other. They were fairly heavy but the balance made it to where it would spin evenly. There was vibration when the turbine spun at full speed, this was addressed by holding the wind turbine’s base. The main technique we had done was putting WD40 on the gears to help make the turbine go at a faster speed. The WD40 helped by letting the gears to turn faster, which made the turbine go faster. The gears were placed where a bigger gear would turn a smaller gear, this creates more power. If the bigger gear is turned by the smaller gear it would be less power because the bigger gear would take at least 2 times the amount of energy to turn the big gear than turning the small gear. There were not any major changes made to the wind turbine for best performance.

Concept Questions Part 1 The environmental benefits of wind energy is that wind is a renewable resource. A renewable resource is a source that is natural and the sluppy of it is not used up quickly, such as, wind, water, and solar power. A tradeoff is that the wind turbines can not be 100% efficient. Some challenges is the space that wind turbine farms take up, there is not always wind. Most of the energy sources in the US is coal and oil. The primary sources of electricity in our region are coal and electric power. In the last ten years the southeast has gotten more and more wind turbines. From 2009-2013 the southeast got 31% more wind turbines (which was more than the coal plants).

Concept Questions Part 2 Wind is created when there is a difference in atmospheric pressure. One of the most windiest parts in the US is Texas. The state with the most wind turbines is Texas with 423 turbines. The US does use offshore wind farms, there is a wind turbine in Rhode Island. This wind turbine farm is there because it was to become the first offshore wind turbine farm, and it was a project by Deepwater Wind. The maximum efficiency is 59.3%. The blade designs are all different but to create the most efficient blade you would have to test out several different blade designs (shape and size). The drivetrain is another thing that makes the wind turbine not able to have 100% efficiency. The drive train is very important to the wind turbine but can wear down, or slow down after time because of being used so much. To counteract this, you would have to use a material that is not worn down easily. Plus how would you know the best material for all of these things unless you test all of the possible materials in the world.

Concept Questions Part 3 For people to make sure that they would have enough energy if the world only used renewable energy. People would have to have windows, so during the day use the sunlight for light. When it is not sunny then use dim flashlights (or ones that don’t use a lot of power) and low watt light blubs. During the night you most likely won’t need any light, so the energy can be used to charge any electronics people might have. If there is no wind on one day (or a few days) then try to use the solar energy (vise versa). To rely on renewable resources and not fossil fuels is a big thing,mbut after a while of practicing not using as much energy, people will not need to use fossil fuels for anything. There are already electric cars and scooters. Also there is the “old school” bicycles that people can ride to places on.

Sources http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2012/06/bringing-wind-to-the-southeast.html http://www.sewind.org/images/fact_sheets/SEWC%20SE%20Regional%20Wind%20Energy%20Fact%20Sheet%20- %20ec%20204.pdf https://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/10/f27/Southeast.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind keyj.com/abilene-makes-the-weather-channels-top-10-list-of-windiest-cities-in-america/ www.power-technology.com/features/feature-biggest-wind-farms-in-the-world-texas/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_Island_Wind_Farm