Pinnacle wing to reduce tower shadow
Our new pinnacle wing and cowlings are finally in production after many delays. These mouldings give a superb finish to the appearance of the turbine, but they are more than a pretty face….
The cowling reduces wind drag at the hub, giving a free flow of air over the generator to the root of the blades. However, the important tweaking comes from the pinnacle wing.
Normally, downwind turbines suffer from tower shadow – when each blade passes by the tower, there is a brief moment when it gets turbulent wind caused by the tower which is a major obstacle located a few inches from the blade. On our Proven 2.5kw machine at home, the tower is quite wide at the point where the blade tip passes, and this gives the blade “dirty wind” for quite a few degrees of rotation.
Our pinnacle wing is designed to reduce this drag to an absolute minimum. It also helps to ensure that the turbine is steadily facing downwind. And it looks good….
Category: Wind Turbines 3 comments »
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:22 am
Hi
i really like your design (and looks) ..can i ask what size of pipe you are using on the tower for the upper section ?… downwind machine info is pretty thin on the web for this size of machine
regards niall
July 4th, 2009 at 8:47 am
Towers have to be specifically designed to withstand both dynamic loading from the turbine and the wind load on both the turbine and the tower. Ours is currently a pressed steel tower with a 20 sided section, tapered from about 20cm at the top. However, any system should have a tower designed as it depends on the thickness of steel, fold section etc. Q
July 9th, 2009 at 6:37 am
thanks for the reply Quenin …unfortunately i,m one of the “suck it and see” type ..need to change my ways there a bit i think
niall