This Instructable will give you a step by step process on how to carve a real wind turbine blade out of wood (not those fake ones from a 4' PVC pipe, but they are cool too.). This was designed by me, a real Aerospace Engineer, using real airfoils, and optimized for a small wind turbine at lower starting wind speeds. I promise you it is easier then you think. I will even provide you with a pdf drawing that you can print out, and use as a template. So I want everyone to start making wind turbine blades.
Well, what are you waiting for, GO! If you are interested in how to design your own go here: By the way, after you make these you need to make a hub, but that is easy too. And make or buy a motor, but you can get them cheap on Ebay.
Just type in PMG (Permanent Magnet Generator). They are nice because they do not require a gear box because they operate at relatively low RPM (500 RPM for this blade).
Okay, step one, lets make some blade templates. I will make this easy for you. All you have to do, is download the PDF here: I Also attached it to this step.
This drawing is 1:1. Which means, all you have to do is print it out, probably in sections if you don't have a plotter. Which most people don't.
But you can easily select different regions of the drawing to print, and then print them. Be sure you don't have any scaling on, as this will change the size of the print out to fit the paper, you don't want to change the size. As you can see from the drawing below that each section corresponds with a given station along the blade.
When you start carving it is critical that you mark the blade sections and their corresponding station (ie. A-A, B-B, C-C etc) So when you start carving you know which section goes to which station Attachments. Once you have your sections printed out, from the previous step.
All you have to do is glue them to something hard, like: Cardboard, thin aluminum, construction paper, plastic sheets, Mylar, wood, Balsa, something that will hold its shape, but you can easily cut with scissors, tin snips, band saw, jig saw, scroll saw. Once you glue each template section to the material of choice, just cut out the section. You can see below what each section will look like. Don't forget to mark each section with the correct letter. I had a friend with a water jet cutter, so I cheated, and had him cut them from 1/16' Aluminum.
But you really could use anything that will hold its shape. To me, this is the least fun part. You have to make your wind turbine blade of something. I found that soft pine, found at home depot is fine and very easy to carve. And you can harden it later. You can also use hard woods, like maple, oak, etc, but good luck carving it. I have provided a very simple drawing with dimensions, showing the easiest way to glue up few 3/4' boards so that carving goes very quick.
Less material to start, means less material to remove. Download drawing here or below: When you get all the wood ready to glue, prepare your clamps, and use regular wood glue. I use Tightbond brand glue, which is also available at home depot.
Apply glue to both sides of each board, and get your clamps ready. Once all the board are together, clamp that sucker down. You cannot have any gaps, gaps will ruin everything. So make sure to have lots of clamps or very heavy weights. Do not leave any air gaps. Attachments. I take the print out of plan-form (top view) of the blade, and tape it onto my glued-up boards.
The mark out the blade plan-form (top looking down onto the blade). Then use a band saw or jigsaw to cut out the plan form. Below is an image of the blade after the plan-form is cut out. You can see it lays on top of the drawing, and matches its edges.
You can also see that each section can now be marked (ie. A-A, B-B, C-C, etc.) Be sure to mark them good, as this will be used to carve the blade. If you have a regular printer, you can print out sections and tape them together. It's not that hard.
Basically, all I do is place my template at each section, which I marked from the previous step, all around the blade. I align each template on the front side (leading) edge and mark the airfoil shape as it would touch that blade station. See below, C is marked at C, and D is marked at D. Where the most forward edge touches the line is the leading edge. I do this for every section along the blade. I then draw a line from peak to peak. This line is the leading edge line.
And will guide you where NOT to cut. I repeat this is the line in which you do NOT want to remove material. You want to remove material above and below it, but that line is suppose to be the most forward part of the blade, and will never be cut. I hope so, or your in trouble.
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I repeat this with the back edge (trailing edge). FYI, leading and trailing edge is an Aerodynamics term, which as you may have guessed, is how the airfoil 'sees' the air. Leading edge being the first part of the airfoil or wing to feel the air, and the trailing edge is the last. See being a nerd is cool.
If you have gotten this far, the most fun part starts now. You will use a planer, draw knife, or spoke shave to remove a bulk of the material.
This tools are eaisly found in most wood shops, and can be purchased at home depot for cheap. You can see I just remove the material up to the leading and trailing edge lines, I never remove material on the leading or trailing edge. If you are getting nervous, just place the template at the correct station and see if it fits.
You prolly have a lot to go. But I do it anyway. If you used pine, this should go quick, as every time you draw with your knife the material just melts off. As you start getting close to the final shape, start laying your templates at each station, and marking the 'high spots'. Usually with a pencil. And use a spoke shave to bring in the high spots. See below as we lay template E-E onto its corresponding location, you can see high spots.
Then we remove them with the spoke shave in the next image. Finally, sand the blade, and it will look great! I have a hub already designed for this blade, it is quite simple you only need two pieces of wood or metal. You can print out the 1:1 drawing, and band saw out the shape from wood, or use a mill to cut out of aluminum. The drawing is linked below and attached: Ignore the crazy blade grips, they are not needed for this design, only the front and back plates, marked FWD HUB MOUNT, and AFT HUB MOUNT. Again, this is a 1:1 drawing.
Attachments.
It is possible to produce some impractical shapes so. Use the external radius of the pipe for the calculation. The plan can then be wrapped around the pipe to generate the shape of the blade. If the pipe radius is too small and the offset is large to compensate you will end up with a near semi-circular blade section at the blade tip. If a high tip speed ratio is used and a high angle of attack, the tips of the blades will be at a negative angle. I choose a value of Cl=0.85 at 4 degrees angle of attack but this was an estimate.
The lift and drag coefficients will depend on the thickness of the section which varies along the blade length.
By Paul Browning President and CEO of Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Americas (A joint venture of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries) The U.S. Is rich in energy supply. We are almost unique in the world in having an abundance of coal, oil and natural gas, along with exceptional wind, solar and hydropower resources in many areas of our country. At the same time, we see an increasing focus on local air quality and global climate change. My company is responding to these emerging challenges and amazing opportunities by enabling the power plant of the future. We produce a number of products and services that reduce emissions for new and existing power plants. One of our most exciting products is the combined-cycle gas turbine power plant, which uses jet engine technology combined with steam turbine technology to rotate generators that produce electricity.
After decades of R&D, this technology provides the most cost-effective way to generate electricity from natural gas. Our turbines provide fuel efficiency of greater than 63% and produce approximately 65% less carbon dioxide than the coal-fired power plants that they often replace.
While that's great news, we are never complacent and constantly work toward the next generation of efficiency. We already offer the world’s largest and most efficient gas turbine, but on any given day we have hundreds of mechanical design engineers, materials scientists, manufacturing experts, aerodynamicists, and supply-chain specialists at work to improve our turbines. We split these experts up into teams and hand them an assignment – a problem to solve. The teams consist of 6 to 8 cross-functional experts who spin off from the larger group to innovate independently.
They return to present ideas in our war room where some ideas are put to rest and other ideas move to the demonstration phase. It takes these teams several years to turn their ideas into reliable products, in part because we require long-term reliability testing of our products whereas some of our competitors do not. We have an international group of design experts – from Tokyo to Orlando.
They’re searching for ground-breaking new technologies or even the slightest adjustment, which can improve output and reduce environmental impact. If we can, for example, improve fuel efficiency from 63 to 65 percent – moving the needle by just two percentage points – it can make a huge difference in three important ways:. The most obvious difference is fuel savings. Two points of efficiency improvement over the 30 year life of our newest air-cooled J-series gas turbine can save a U.S. Customer an estimated $50 million in fuel cost.
To put that in perspective, that dollar savings is similar to the cost of one of our gas turbines. In a country with higher fuel costs, the savings could be more than $200 million over the life of the power plant. The second benefit is emissions reduction. For example, the annual carbon dioxide emissions reduction from a two-point efficiency improvement is the equivalent of taking 10,000 cars off the road for a year. Finally, highly efficient power plants get more operating hours, because they’re the last power plant to be shut down when electrical demand is low. This means our power plants generate more revenue for our customers. One of the most challenging components in our product is called a turbine blade.
Each blade rotates 3,600 times per minute, and is simultaneously hit by a 3000 degree Fahrenheit gas mixture that's moving at nearly the speed of sound and is pressurized to over 20 times atmospheric pressure. We go to these extreme temperatures and pressures because the hotter and higher we go, the more power we can generate for a given amount of fuel. To do this, we combine state-of-the-art technology with an age-old technique called lost-wax investment casting. The earliest known “lost-wax” castings date from the early dynasties of Egypt, nearly 7,000 years ago, when metal was poured into “investments” of fired clay that had been shaped with the help of wax that was melted, or “lost.” Then, sometime between 4,000 and 3,000 B.C., bronze was discovered and used in investment castings.
Thus began the era known as the Bronze Age. To make our most advanced turbine components, we use a modern-day version of this ancient Egyptian technology. Today we use supercomputers to design our castings and the internal passageways that are used to cool them during service. We also use some of the world’s most advanced materials science to develop specialized alloys and coatings that can tolerate ever higher temperatures and stresses.
What excites me every day is that the impact we’re having is much bigger than a couple percentage points of improved efficiency. Our natural gas power plants are more flexible than ever, allowing them to quickly add or subtract power when variable power sources like wind and solar are present. We call wind and solar “intermittent” power sources, and with more and more of these intermittent power sources being added to the electrical grid, the flexible operation of our gas turbines is a key enabler. If we want to continue to add more renewable power to our grid, flexible natural gas will also be necessary – at least until next-generation energy storage technologies become more affordable and scalable (we’re working on these too). And this combination of highly efficient and flexible natural gas along with renewables is having an impact.
In recent years, the United States has been retiring older inefficient coal power plants and replacing them with a combination of combined-cycle gas turbines and intermittent renewables. The result is that we are rapidly decarbonizing the US electrical grid and also improving local air quality. And further good news is that with natural gas and renewables both becoming much less expensive in recent years, we’re also reducing the cost of electricity while we decarbonize. Energy is a complex issue. While many good people have been convinced that anything related to fossil fuel is bad, I think the evidence of the past decade is very clear that natural gas power generation in combination with renewables is creating a cleaner US power grid that enables greater prosperity.
In the next decade, we have huge challenges that need to be met and I know that our company will continue to play an important role in moving the world forward. About the author: Paul Browning is President and CEO of Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Americas (MHPSA), Inc. And oversees all Western Hemisphere business activities. With over 2,000 employees and headquartered in Central Florida, MHPSA operates four manufacturing and repair centers and provides products/services for the electric power generation industry. Browning has extensive global leadership experience in distributed and central power generation, and in North American midstream and downstream oil and gas operations. Prior to joining MHPSA, Mr.
Browning was President and CEO for Irving Oil Company Limited and was President and CEO of the Thermal Products Division of GE Power & Water. This was first published on January 5 2017 on Forbes Brand Voice under. Spectra keeps you up to speed on the latest trends, innovations, and leadership shaping industrial technology. Spectra is brought to you by the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) Group, a global leader in engineering and manufacturing. MHI Group delivers innovative and integrated solutions across a wide range of industries from commercial aviation and transportation to power plants and gas turbines, and from machinery and infrastructure to integrated defense and space systems. Learn more about Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
Nowadays, DIY own Wind Turbine is more and more popular. It's a really cool creations that you put all parts together. Building your own wind turbine have lots of fun.
We can use the PVC pipe to make wind turbine blades, because the PVC pipe is very a cheap and accessible materials. The blade size depends on the generator selected. Larger is not always better. A wind turbine with 2 blades will turn faster than a turbine with 6 blades. A wind turbine with 6 blades has more power to turn a larger generator. Below is an example design of a one piece (two blade) PVC wind turbine propeller.
Wind Turbine Rotor Blades
This design may be adapted with more turbine blades to fit a 3 blade or even 5 blade turbine configuration setup. First of all we want to quarter the pipe. Now drawing straight line and measuring on round surfaces is hard, so the best method is to get a large sheet of paper. If you wrap the sheet tightly around the pipe you get a straight line round the pipe.
If you line one edge of the paper with this line you can get straight lines going down the pipe. With the paper wrapped round the pipe you can mark the circumference. Then you can fold the paper in half and mark half way round the pipe. Then in half again and get quarters of the pipes.
With these methods you should be able to draw good straight lines all over the pipe dividing it lengthways into quarters. Now for each of our four quarters we want to do two things 1) Cut out a rectangle from the base about 5 cms in, so we can easily attach it to whatever we want to.
Before you do the cut, drill a hole in the corner to improve the structural integrity of the material. Once the hole is drilled cut the rectangles out being careful not to cut past the hole. 2) Cut from the high tip of the base to the point. One of the most difficult parts of making your own wind turbine is producing turbine blades.
Wind turbine blades go through enormous stresses and must be made to quite exacting tolerances if they are to balance and not send destructive vibrations through your wind turbine resulting in a catastrophic failure of your wind turbine. In strong winds the flexibility of the PVC blades is useful as it takes some of the energy out of the wind preventing the wind turbine generator from excessive spinning (Overrun) and being damaged.
Homemade Pvc Wind Turbine Generator
Obviously you need to take care to ensure that the blades cannot bend back far enough to hit the wind turbine mast. Individual wind turbine blades can be cut out of the pipe using a jigsaw or hacksaw blade, or a one piece pair of blades can be made. Related posts:.
Nowadays, DIY own Wind Turbine is more and more popular. It's a really cool creations that you put all parts together. Building your own wind turbine have lots of fun. We can use the PVC pipe to make wind turbine blades, because the PVC pipe is very a cheap and accessible materials. The blade size depends on the generator selected.
Larger is not always better. A wind turbine with 2 blades will turn faster than a turbine with 6 blades. A wind turbine with 6 blades has more power to turn a larger generator. Below is an example design of a one piece (two blade) PVC wind turbine propeller. This design may be adapted with more turbine blades to fit a 3 blade or even 5 blade turbine configuration setup.
First of all we want to quarter the pipe. Now drawing straight line and measuring on round surfaces is hard, so the best method is to get a large sheet of paper.
If you wrap the sheet tightly around the pipe you get a straight line round the pipe. If you line one edge of the paper with this line you can get straight lines going down the pipe. With the paper wrapped round the pipe you can mark the circumference.
Then you can fold the paper in half and mark half way round the pipe. Then in half again and get quarters of the pipes. With these methods you should be able to draw good straight lines all over the pipe dividing it lengthways into quarters. Now for each of our four quarters we want to do two things 1) Cut out a rectangle from the base about 5 cms in, so we can easily attach it to whatever we want to. Before you do the cut, drill a hole in the corner to improve the structural integrity of the material. Once the hole is drilled cut the rectangles out being careful not to cut past the hole. 2) Cut from the high tip of the base to the point.
One of the most difficult parts of making your own wind turbine is producing turbine blades. Wind turbine blades go through enormous stresses and must be made to quite exacting tolerances if they are to balance and not send destructive vibrations through your wind turbine resulting in a catastrophic failure of your wind turbine. In strong winds the flexibility of the PVC blades is useful as it takes some of the energy out of the wind preventing the wind turbine generator from excessive spinning (Overrun) and being damaged. Obviously you need to take care to ensure that the blades cannot bend back far enough to hit the wind turbine mast. Individual wind turbine blades can be cut out of the pipe using a jigsaw or hacksaw blade, or a one piece pair of blades can be made. Related posts:.