Photo: Tomas van Dijk
However eco-friendly they may be, wind turbines are not very popular with people – unless these people happen to own them. For his graduation project Hengfeng Chi (Industrial Design and Engineering) set out to design a turbine that is like candy to the eyes.
Together with former TU techno-starter Actiflow, now an engineering company based in Breda that specialises in aerodynamics, Chi chose the Pier of Scheveningen as the ideal location for the urban wind turbine. The Pier has a lot of undisturbed wind and people don’t live close enough to hear any of the noise the turbines might produce. Plus the once-famous tourist magnet could do with a new attraction.
Chi set out to study the pro’s and con’s of various wind turbine designs, the limitations of so-called urban wind turbines and the influences of the built environment on the wind. The Chinese designer also absorbed the atmosphere of the targeted coastal town: sea, wind and waves. And also: fishes, plants and tourists. He used a technique called mindmapping to diverge his ideas in brainstorming to design a wind turbine that people would like to look at for a change.
The design that Chi came up with is new, unexpected and intriguing. Called the ‘Wing Rings’, it features a standing axis, which supports four rows of three vertical rings vertical rings of about a metre across. When the wind blows, which is mostly the case in Scheveningen, the rings will start to rotate around the axis, very much like the half balls of a wind speed meter (anemometer).
“The open ring is more efficient than the half balls”, Chi explains, because of the airfoil caused by the ring. A cross section of the ring looks like a cross section of an aircraft wing. And just like a wing, the ring experiences a forward pointing lift force, which effectively propels the ring into the wind. The main advantage of the airfoil is that it propels the turbine faster than the wind speed, thus increasing its efficiency.
That said, it must be noted that the power output is modest at best. Depending on the wind speed, the power output is estimated to vary between 90 Watts (at 6 meter/second) and 1100 Watt (14 meter/second). On average Scheveningen offers 7 m/s or about 140 Watts or 1200 kWh per year. That’s only about 120 euro’s worth of power.
Chi agrees payback time on power only would be very long. But, he argues, the Wind Ring is more than a turbine; it’s also an ecological statement that companies can use to stand out. Especially at night, bathing in LED-light, Chi’s turbine promises to turn wind at sea into a multisensory experience: sense, sound & vision. Actiflow now looks for investors in the project. Chi’s design was awarded an 8,5 last Friday.
