Vertical Axis Wind Turbine
In my Mechanical Engineering Design Laboratory course, we designed and constructed a vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) with the goal of generating as much power as possible. The wind turbine was made a of laser-cut medium density fiberboard frame wrapped in plastic sheeting and secured with duct tape. These blades were attached screwed into 80-20 aluminum bars that connected the blades with a central shaft. We built a gear system to correctly scale the torque generated by the motor to the size of the turbine. The motor would generate torque to get the turbine started. This whole system was pushed, on a cart at a high speed, down the hallway to generate power.
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We started by designing and building small scale turbines and testing them in the wind tunnel. Then, we characterized the motor to understand the parameters of the final system that we were to test on. Finally, we constructed our full scale turbine and tested it successfully.
