I've always wondered how sophisticated the algorithms for arranging
windmills might be.
A 0th-order one would seem to be to estimate the region where one
windmill disturbs the airflow and avoid placing another in it.
Another involves deferring to the topography (Tohachapi pass for
example) and maximizing the ground-effects of air flowing over ridges,
etc.
It would seem that the problem should bend fairly well to computer
simulation.
My mother-in-law just signed over her 640 acre chunk of Northern Iowa,
currently under cultivation for Soy, to be used for wind-farming (as
well). There is not a place I know more flat than this land... I
assume a large grid of windmills will sweep over the landscape with her
640 acres a tiny spot within the larger grid.
Each windmill would seem to create a rough "cone" of disturbance
leeward. That "cone" would probably consist of multiple scales of
compression waves... it would seem that the natural period of the
larger waves would be primarily a function of wind-speed while the
structure of the turbine blades (blade pitch, width, length,
cross-section) and the amount of resistance the blades(drag, bearing
resistance, generator back-force, etc.) would inform the other
structures. A simple euclidean grid would seem to be less than
optimal, with a hexagonal grid (intuitively) seeming closest to
optimal.
One might imagine that freeing some assumed constraints might offer
more opportunities for "tuning" such an array. Deliberately canting
(in yaw) some of the mills relative to the wind might reduce their own
effeciency to the gain of others "downwind" as might deliberately
detuning the "pitch" (dynamically or statically.. at time of
install/manufacture). Similarly, the height and pitch of the mill
heads might be varied slightly over the array. One would expect some
low order "standing waves" behind a single mill.
Interesting (but distracting) question...
How to tune a flock of windmills (statically, dynamically, ???).
For many reasons, I expect wind "mills" to be replaced by something
more like giant Cilia someday... maybe just for this very reason...
that it should be easier to "tune" an array of such things than a bunch
of "fans". Cilia-like energy extracting elements would seem suitable
for hydro-power as well.
You can tell I still love the "idea of" macro-engineering projects...
but I'm pretty sure they are intrinsically bad for the health of the
planet/humanity.
- Steve
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 -----
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,
-----
Original Message -----
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,
----- Original Message -----
Sent: 11/24/2009 7:36:30 PM
Subject: [FRIAM] flocking windmills
Same power production as existing wind farms in 100th the land area.
-- rec --
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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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