Transcript The-WindMaster

The WindMaster
Lee Creviston
Ben Peters
Mark Rizzitiello
Lindsey West
The Green Team
Windmill Overview
• Wind enters Windmill and turns blades
• Blades drive shaft which is connected
generator
• Generator shaft turns magnets inside coil of
wire which creates electricity
• Bare ends of wire are connected to light bulb,
which turns on when windmill spins
The WindMaster
Efficiency Calculations
• Power = ½(ρ)(Area)(Velocity3)
– ρ: density of air (1.225 kg/m3)
– A: rotor swept area exposed to wind (m2)
– V: velocity of wind (m/s2)
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Power = ½(1.225)(.01597)(1.73) = 0.0481 W
Actual voltage generated: ≈3.25 V
Actual power generated: ≈0.01 W
Efficiency: 0.01/0.0481 = 0.2079 = 20.79%
Design Issues
• First built generator using cardboard box, which
created too much friction on the driveshaft
• The first design was too small
• We had to change the direction of the magnets
versus the direction of the coils to properly
generate electricity
• We also tried using to K-Nex to build the
generator but decided it was not sturdy enough,
and ultimately switched to wood
Conclusions
• A large amount of energy has to be put into the
windmill just to create a small amount of
electricity
• We realized that on this scale the windmill is
rather inefficient and would have to be on a very
large scale to be useful
• Windmills are still a viable solution for generating
electricity, however they must be installed in the
proper environment and be much more efficient
than ours