No, the pelaton uses the lead rider to break a bow wave through the air, but the eddies from each rider's passage also curl around to give some lift to the subsequent riders in the pelaton. If you smoothed it out into one long cylinder, it wouldn't work as well.
The vertical wind turbines work as a flock because they induce a sort of do-si-do of the wind through the flock, where each rank of turbines is positioned to catch the eddy from the preceding rank and throw it back to the next rank. Because the wind takes a longer than straight path through the flock, it has to move faster than the unimpeded wind. If you just set up a stonehenge in the same arrangement as the flock of turbines, you'd get the same sort of velocity effect. Having the flock adjust its geometry could be a big win. A fixed installation would be tuned to the most likely wind speed and direction. -- rec -- On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 9:58 AM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote: > Hugh, > > Thanks for explaining this to me. I figured it was something like that. > > But the logic IS backwards with respect to the bike racer model. The Bike > racer pod is trying to protect the lead racer from wind resistance, the wind > mills are trying to pass that resistance through to ever member of the pod. > > We could shrink-wrap the bike-pod, and it would do its job even better. > Not so the windmill pod. > > Right? > > N > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe] > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Hugh Trenchard <htrench...@shaw.ca> > *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group<friam@redfish.com> > ;nickthomp...@earthlink.net;Carl Tollander <c...@plektyx.com> > *Cc: *fr...@redfish.com > *Sent:* 11/25/2009 7:15:27 AM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] flocking windmills > > > ...that should read "rotate the position of the fans 90 degrees" (it was > late and I should have been in bed). > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Hugh Trenchard <htrench...@shaw.ca> > *To:* nickthomp...@earthlink.net ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity > Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> ; Carl Tollander <c...@plektyx.com> > *Cc:* Friam@redfish.com > *Sent:* Wednesday, November 25, 2009 12:05 AM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] flocking windmills > > > It looks to me the article addresses this. When windmills are in a > conventional "face to the wind" position, they do need to be well spread out > in order to catch as much wind as possible. But if you rotate the position > 90 of the fans degrees so that they are spinning "sideways", they spin with > greater efficiency when lined up behind each other in zones of lower air > resistance. The article appears to refer to this fan position as a > "vertical" rotation. The photo shows "vertically" rotating tube like > structures, which are much like long fans turned on their sides. Aligning > them in fish school formation evidently is the most efficient in terms of > space and maximal wattage generation. That's how it all appears to me in > any event. > > Hugh Trenchard > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Nicholas Thompson <nickthomp...@earthlink.net> > *To:* Carl Tollander <c...@plektyx.com> > *Cc:* Friam@redfish.com > *Sent:* Tuesday, November 24, 2009 9:45 PM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] flocking windmills > > Sorry, everybody. What I meant to write was, "*Wait *a blithering > moment!!!", suggesting, at least, that the metaphor between bunching up > cyclists and bunching up windturbines was backwards. Don't you WANT your > turbines to "feel" the "headwind"? > > Of course I am wrong about this, but I sure would like to understand why. > > Nick > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe] > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Carl Tollander <c...@plektyx.com> > *To: *nickthomp...@earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity > Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> > *Sent:* 11/24/2009 10:13:22 PM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] flocking windmills > > What they lack is mobility - lacking some sort of mobile platform maybe > they could get together and decide where the next best placement would be > and tell the manufacturing and installation people. Some sort of > distributed instantiation - Group orders another member, turbine shows up in > the mail, speaks up, says, "I am a wind turbine, the group has determined > that it will be most efficient if you place me over there." And the humans > would go do that, since the turbine family was usually right about such > things. > > So maybe the turbines "want" some particular configuration, the friction is > just one criteria. If they were a phased array antenna (in addition to > being a group of wind turbines) then they would have additional criteria. > > C > > Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > Now what a blithering moment. Cyclists flock to reduce friction. Ditto > fish, I suppose. > > So, turbines want less friction with the wind????? > > Something screwy here. > > N > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/> > http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe] > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Roger Critchlow <r...@elf.org> > *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group<friam@redfish.com> > *Sent:* 11/24/2009 7:36:30 PM > *Subject:* [FRIAM] flocking windmills > > Same power production as existing wind farms in 100th the land area. > > http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/1124/1 > > -- rec -- > > ------------------------------ > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > ------------------------------ > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > ------------------------------ > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >
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