User:Deakin2074/enes100/mywork

Link to team page.

Week0 Activities
the goal of this project is to produce a wind turbine to test the capabilities of power generation

My First Task
for the first weekend I did mostly brainstorming, but have a simple design of what i am to create.

Summary of actual work over first weekend
over the first weekend i created designs on how the project will look. these were some rough sketches, and so i have no idea of what to expect from the first design.

Week1 Narrative
For week one of the project i went home and continued on the wind turbine design. the design would include modifications to the current by improving the aerodynamics of the fan and the wind around it. the fans that i am currently using are in a square sheeth with a flat body. the design that i worked on will draw more air through the fan, it will do so with the new aerodynamic modifications i added. the design was simple, i just added a cone design to the front of the fan to improve the current flat faced fan. with the cone in place the air will be drawn into the fan and around the new cone on fan.

My Second Task
the second task that i need to do is to put the design together and to make sure that it will have the output i am looking for. also i need to make the fan contunuly more aerodynamic to increase the ;possible energy output. the more i can better the design the more the power that can be be produced from the design. i was thinking that weight reduction along with constant aerodynamic testing will draw optimum power

Week2 Activities
Feb28==

Summary of actual work over second weekend
How is what you did different than what you planned?

Week2 Narrative
Tell a detailed story describing what you did for your team over the weekend.

My Third task
Record what you are planning on doing for the team during the third weekend.

Summary of actual work over third weekend
over the third weekend i continued my progress on the wind turbine. for the progress of the turbine to continue i gathered various materials such as glue, hot glue gun, nails, and anything else i may need to use to hold the turbine together.

Week3 Narrative
over the weekend i started to put the turbine together. the first thing that i started progress on was the design with the shroud because it will be the most difficult to create. the shroud design would need to be mounted onto the wind turbine housing itself. to make it easier on myself i decided that it would be easiest to put together just by using nuts ang bolts. the first problem i ran into was that the holes that origonally mounted the pc fans to the pc were too small for the materials i aquired. to avoid going back to the store i simly re-drilled the holes making them only slightly larger but making it so there was not a lot of wiggle room. drilling the holes in the PC fan shroud could leave room for the bolts to move but by using a drill bit that is closest to the same diameter as the bolt i reduced the extra room that the bolt could move. by removing this space i can reduce vibrations within the structure itself.

i have noticed that their are many small factors that can effect the wind turbine. something that i had noticed with the other wind turbine group was some of the problems they were having. small factors in their design were causing problems. height was one of the biggest problems and their turbine did not seem to be properly mounted or secured to structure because there were vibrations that caused the head of the fan to shake in a horoizontal direction. also balancing this fan could also be an issue that needs to be delt with in the correct manner so the fan again does not cause any extra movement. the issue with the extra movement is that this means the extra movement will be a loss of energy. these wind turbines are used to capture energy and to acheve the optimum power from these PC fans they must not waste any extra energy on extra movement.

My Fourth task
for the final weekend for this project the shroud will be finally be put on the one fan design. also the other designs will be constructed to show compairisons betwwen the pc fans with or without the shrouds.

Summary of actual work over fourth weekend
over the last weekend i had planned on just recording the results of the turbines, but there were several errors in the design that needed to be significantly modified to get the results i am looking for. over the weekend the windturbines were all mounted but the DC brushless motors needed to be taken off and replaced with new motors. then like before the fan was ziptied and glued to its standing support. with the motors sucsessfuly changed out i took it outside and began recording the final results of the turbines. i created two videos that show the results of the turbines which can be compaired with the obvious understanding that the shroud design proved to create more power than its competition.

the final results were that the shrouded turbine design was a lot better than the free floating fan turbine.

Week4 Narrative
over the weekend i created several videos demonstrating the project comming together. the wind turbine project was coming to a close so i documented, and recorded all the vital information that would bring the project to its conclusion. data collection is the most important part of the project because this information will prove or disprove the wind shroud design being the best choise. when both of the turbines were set up the testing process could finally begin,but there were several issues with the motors. the dc brushless motors were not generating as much amps as i had origonally presumed. after getting annoyed with the motors not complying with what i want them to do they were ripped off and never seen again. after the new motors were iinstalled to the fan blades i continued testing with positive resultus. the new motors were working great, so great the other wind turbine group was totally jealous. with this awesome video you can see me attempt to hold the camera still and obviously fail. more importantly this video shows the un-shrouded fan or 'control' of this experiment. with this | Awesomer video I was able to compare the results by both turbines. on the unshrouded turbine it maxed out at .8miliamps, while the shroud design produced almoset 1.2milliamps. the shroud design produced 100% more power when compaired to the un-shrouded design which is very significant.

the wind shroud design that was replicated from the original Wind Tammer has proven very sucsessfull with solid results. the shroud design produced a significant more than the un-shrouded design. the reason the shroud design was so sucsessful was due to the airflow around and through the turbine. the natural wind creates a vaccume around the turbine, which can there by draw more gas through it. to make sure that this was the actual case and not random more testing of the shroud design needed to be done. a simple plan was devised to use the whole leave blower and focus the air directly at the fan. by directly shooting the fan the air cannot travel around the shroud and create the vaccum. when the air was focused towards the center of the fan the amps were very minimal when compaired to the origonal shrouded results. this thereby proves that the shroud is creating this vaccum and provides more power than a shroudless design.

Complete Project Page
Wind Turbine