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#1
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Suggestion: wind energy will make gliders cheaper
Sailplane designers,
Modern wind turbine blades are strikingly similar to glider wings. They are now now coming out in sizes approaching 50 meters. The market expansion for wind energy is expected to grow rapidly. The ensuing economies of scale from mass produced wind turbine blades just might offer significant cost advantages to glider manufactures. I realize the "flight" regime of a glider wing and turbine blade are not exactly the same but the cost advantage could be so significant that the compromise is acceptable; you decide. Also many requirements ARE the same: lightweight, long, strong, and low maintenance. Back to cost reduction, economies of scale can reduce manufacturing costs for things like CRTs factors of 1,000th to 100,000. Imagine a glider market with wings costing 100th of what they cost now (would we throw away wings like razor blades when they start crazing - crazy?). Used as wing turbine blades would require regulatory approval (or do they if used on an ultralight?). That could kill the idea right there. In fact this idea is just CRAZY so don't bother telling me its crazy and why it can't work. There are dozens of reasons not to consider this. Nonetheless, I'm tossing this out so that some glider designer might have in the back of his/her mind and some day pursue it in case there is one way it might work. Here is a list of the current wind turbine manufacturers in order of 2005 market sha 1. Vestas Wind Systems (Denmark) http://www.vestas.com/uk/Home/index.asp 2. Gamesa Corporation Tecnologica (Spain) http://www.gamesa.es/gamesa/index.html 3. LM Glasfiber (Denmark) http://www.lmglasfiber.com/DK/home/default.htm Largest US manufacturer: GE Energy - wind arm (USA) http://www.gepower.com/about/info/en/windmill.htm Have fun, Richard |
#2
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In article . com,
"RichardFreytag" wrote: Sailplane designers, Modern wind turbine blades are strikingly similar to glider wings. They are now now coming out in sizes approaching 50 meters. The market expansion for wind energy is expected to grow rapidly. The ensuing economies of scale from mass produced wind turbine blades just might offer significant cost advantages to glider manufactures. I realize the "flight" regime of a glider wing and turbine blade are not exactly the same but the cost advantage could be so significant that the compromise is acceptable; you decide. Also many requirements ARE the same: lightweight, long, strong, and low maintenance. Back to cost reduction, economies of scale can reduce manufacturing costs for things like CRTs factors of 1,000th to 100,000. Imagine a glider market with wings costing 100th of what they cost now (would we throw away wings like razor blades when they start crazing - crazy?). Used as wing turbine blades would require regulatory approval (or do they if used on an ultralight?). That could kill the idea right there. In fact this idea is just CRAZY so don't bother telling me its crazy and why it can't work. There are dozens of reasons not to consider this. Nonetheless, I'm tossing this out so that some glider designer might have in the back of his/her mind and some day pursue it in case there is one way it might work. The idea won't work for one very simple reason: twist. I wind turbine blade has twist to compensate for the varying apparent wind angle, since the blade is moving much faster across the wind at its tip than it is at its root. Here is a list of the current wind turbine manufacturers in order of 2005 market sha 1. Vestas Wind Systems (Denmark) http://www.vestas.com/uk/Home/index.asp 2. Gamesa Corporation Tecnologica (Spain) http://www.gamesa.es/gamesa/index.html 3. LM Glasfiber (Denmark) http://www.lmglasfiber.com/DK/home/default.htm Largest US manufacturer: GE Energy - wind arm (USA) http://www.gepower.com/about/info/en/windmill.htm Have fun, Richard -- Alan Baker Vancouver, British Columbia "If you raise the ceiling 4 feet, move the fireplace from that wall to that wall, you'll still only get the full stereophonic effect if you sit in the bottom of that cupboard." |
#3
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RichardFreytag wrote:
Modern wind turbine blades are strikingly similar to glider wings. They are now now coming out in sizes approaching 50 meters. The market expansion for wind energy is expected to grow rapidly. The ensuing economies of scale from mass produced wind turbine blades just might offer significant cost advantages to glider manufactures. Nice idea, but among other things, a turbine blade is designed to cope with the fact that the effective airspeed of the inner portion of the "wing" is always somewhat less than the outer portion. If you look at one up close, you'll notice it has a good deal of twist. They also use differing airfoils along the length of the blade. Finally, I suspect they are a good deal heavier than what we would need. By the way, one of the oddest things I've seen on the tracks through the waterfront in downtown Oakland (California), was what turned out to be a train load of large unassembled wind turbines headed somewhere up north... Marc |
#4
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I was curious who would come back within 14 minutes to confirm what a
crazy idea I had so I typed 'Alan Baker' into the Google Groups search field. Interesting reading. You're right Alan, using wind turbine blades on gliders just can't work. grin Cheers, Richard |
#5
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The blades themselves are not useful as glider wings but some parts of the
manufacturing base that makes them might be adapted to produce wings. "RichardFreytag" wrote in message ups.com... Sailplane designers, Modern wind turbine blades are strikingly similar to glider wings. They are now now coming out in sizes approaching 50 meters. The market expansion for wind energy is expected to grow rapidly. The ensuing economies of scale from mass produced wind turbine blades just might offer significant cost advantages to glider manufactures. I realize the "flight" regime of a glider wing and turbine blade are not exactly the same but the cost advantage could be so significant that the compromise is acceptable; you decide. Also many requirements ARE the same: lightweight, long, strong, and low maintenance. Back to cost reduction, economies of scale can reduce manufacturing costs for things like CRTs factors of 1,000th to 100,000. Imagine a glider market with wings costing 100th of what they cost now (would we throw away wings like razor blades when they start crazing - crazy?). Used as wing turbine blades would require regulatory approval (or do they if used on an ultralight?). That could kill the idea right there. In fact this idea is just CRAZY so don't bother telling me its crazy and why it can't work. There are dozens of reasons not to consider this. Nonetheless, I'm tossing this out so that some glider designer might have in the back of his/her mind and some day pursue it in case there is one way it might work. Here is a list of the current wind turbine manufacturers in order of 2005 market sha 1. Vestas Wind Systems (Denmark) http://www.vestas.com/uk/Home/index.asp 2. Gamesa Corporation Tecnologica (Spain) http://www.gamesa.es/gamesa/index.html 3. LM Glasfiber (Denmark) http://www.lmglasfiber.com/DK/home/default.htm Largest US manufacturer: GE Energy - wind arm (USA) http://www.gepower.com/about/info/en/windmill.htm Have fun, Richard |
#6
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RichardFreytag wrote:
Sailplane designers, Modern wind turbine blades are strikingly similar to glider wings. They are now now coming out in sizes approaching 50 meters. The market expansion for wind energy is expected to grow rapidly. The ensuing economies of scale from mass produced wind turbine blades just might offer significant cost advantages to glider manufactures. I realize the "flight" regime of a glider wing and turbine blade are not exactly the same but the cost advantage could be so significant that the compromise is acceptable; you decide. Also many requirements ARE the same: lightweight, long, strong, and low maintenance. Back to cost reduction, economies of scale can reduce manufacturing costs for things like CRTs factors of 1,000th to 100,000. Imagine a glider market with wings costing 100th of what they cost now (would we throw away wings like razor blades when they start crazing - crazy?). Used as wing turbine blades would require regulatory approval (or do they if used on an ultralight?). That could kill the idea right there. In fact this idea is just CRAZY so don't bother telling me its crazy and why it can't work. There are dozens of reasons not to consider this. Nonetheless, I'm tossing this out so that some glider designer might have in the back of his/her mind and some day pursue it in case there is one way it might work. I thought of something similar in the recent past. Wind turbine manufacturers could probably build glider wings pretty easily. The turbine blades themselves are wrong for aviation use, but I suspect their aerodynamics, engineering, and fabrication techniques are very similar to a gliders. Google found this: http://www.compositesworld.com/hpc/issues/2004/May/450 Turbine blades are made big and in big numbers (The GE site said they have nearly 3000 1.5 MW turbines out there. That's 4500 gliders worth of wings!), but it's a young industry. The glider manufacturers would do well to cross pollinate with the turbine manufacturers, and may do well "borrowing" some of there manufacturing capacity. Shawn |
#7
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RichardFreytag wrote: Sailplane designers, Modern wind turbine blades are strikingly similar to glider wings. They are now now coming out in sizes approaching 50 meters. The market expansion for wind energy is expected to grow rapidly. The ensuing economies of scale from mass produced wind turbine blades just might offer significant cost advantages to glider manufactures. I realize the "flight" regime of a glider wing and turbine blade are not exactly the same but the cost advantage could be so significant that the compromise is acceptable; you decide. Also many requirements ARE the same: lightweight, long, strong, and low maintenance. Back to cost reduction, economies of scale can reduce manufacturing costs for things like CRTs factors of 1,000th to 100,000. Imagine a glider market with wings costing 100th of what they cost now (would we throw away wings like razor blades when they start crazing - crazy?). Used as wing turbine blades would require regulatory approval (or do they if used on an ultralight?). That could kill the idea right there. In fact this idea is just CRAZY so don't bother telling me its crazy and why it can't work. There are dozens of reasons not to consider this. Nonetheless, I'm tossing this out so that some glider designer might have in the back of his/her mind and some day pursue it in case there is one way it might work. Here is a list of the current wind turbine manufacturers in order of 2005 market sha 1. Vestas Wind Systems (Denmark) http://www.vestas.com/uk/Home/index.asp 2. Gamesa Corporation Tecnologica (Spain) http://www.gamesa.es/gamesa/index.html 3. LM Glasfiber (Denmark) http://www.lmglasfiber.com/DK/home/default.htm Largest US manufacturer: GE Energy - wind arm (USA) http://www.gepower.com/about/info/en/windmill.htm Have fun, Richard Intriguing idea, except that all the large wind turbines I have seen usually turn in one direction. They make only either left or right wings. Uli Neumann |
#8
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During the 2003 Sailplane Homebuilder's Association Western Workshop at
Tehachapi, I got to tour the Tehachapi facility of GE Windpower (formerly Enron Windpower). In the tour group with me was Gerhard Waibel, arguably one of the best sailplane designers and developers in the world. I think both of us were impressed with the size and effectiveness of the blades we saw, but I don't think either of us saw any direct application of windpower blades to sailplane manufacturing. The blades we got the closest look at (which, by the way, we were specifically instructed not to photograph) weighed a couple tons each, and had very deep sections in terms of T/C. And they were designed for turning flight of the spins-and-plummeting-only sort. Energy economics being what they are, all of the heavy development effort in wind turbines is currently concentrated on very large units, with rotor diameters coming up to 100m or so. They tend to give the best bang for the buck, and tend to kill the fewest birds doing it. But, yeah, if we were playing some sort of Junkyard Wars game, and there happened to be 15-meter diameter wind turbine rotors in the yard in both clockwise and counterclockwise rotations, we might be able to cob something together that might sort of fly and might sort of sustain 2g or so of loading. But beyond that the very specialized requirements of effective soaring flight make it unlikely that there is any technology cross-over except in terms of basic materials and manufacturing techniques. Bob K. http://www.hpaircraft.com/hp-24 |
#9
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So, in addition to the structural, left/right, and twist problems
previously mentioned, turbine blades have an airfoil optimized for a narrow angle of attack range. Glider wings need to operate over a very wide angle of attack range (landing to high speed cruise). So there is very little direct application of the technology. The possibiity of cross polination is interesting, however. RichardFreytag wrote: Sailplane designers, Modern wind turbine blades are strikingly similar to glider wings. They are now now coming out in sizes approaching 50 meters. The market expansion for wind energy is expected to grow rapidly. The ensuing economies of scale from mass produced wind turbine blades just might offer significant cost advantages to glider manufactures. I realize the "flight" regime of a glider wing and turbine blade are not exactly the same but the cost advantage could be so significant that the compromise is acceptable; you decide. Also many requirements ARE the same: lightweight, long, strong, and low maintenance. Back to cost reduction, economies of scale can reduce manufacturing costs for things like CRTs factors of 1,000th to 100,000. Imagine a glider market with wings costing 100th of what they cost now (would we throw away wings like razor blades when they start crazing - crazy?). Used as wing turbine blades would require regulatory approval (or do they if used on an ultralight?). That could kill the idea right there. In fact this idea is just CRAZY so don't bother telling me its crazy and why it can't work. There are dozens of reasons not to consider this. Nonetheless, I'm tossing this out so that some glider designer might have in the back of his/her mind and some day pursue it in case there is one way it might work. Here is a list of the current wind turbine manufacturers in order of 2005 market sha 1. Vestas Wind Systems (Denmark) http://www.vestas.com/uk/Home/index.asp 2. Gamesa Corporation Tecnologica (Spain) http://www.gamesa.es/gamesa/index.html 3. LM Glasfiber (Denmark) http://www.lmglasfiber.com/DK/home/default.htm Largest US manufacturer: GE Energy - wind arm (USA) http://www.gepower.com/about/info/en/windmill.htm Have fun, Richard |
#10
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In article .com,
"RichardFreytag" wrote: I was curious who would come back within 14 minutes to confirm what a crazy idea I had so I typed 'Alan Baker' into the Google Groups search field. Interesting reading. How exactly did you know to type 'Alan Baker', hmmm? g You're right Alan, using wind turbine blades on gliders just can't work. grin Cheers, Richard -- Alan Baker Vancouver, British Columbia "If you raise the ceiling 4 feet, move the fireplace from that wall to that wall, you'll still only get the full stereophonic effect if you sit in the bottom of that cupboard." |
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