LEGO Wind Energy: Green Energy Projects with Mindstorms EV3

© Grady Koch 2019

Grady Koch and Elias KochLEGO Wind Energyhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-4439-5_5

5. The Horizontal-Axis Turbine

Grady Koch¹  and Elias Koch²

(1)

Yorktown, VA, USA

(2)

Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

 

The airfoil blades built in the previous chapter are the basis for the horizontal-axis turbine A horizontal-axis turbine produces much more electrical power than a vertical-axis design does because the blades catch a much larger area of wind. This area of capture is called the swept area and is defined by the diameter encircled by the airfoil blades as they spin. For comparison, the swept area of the vertical-axis turbine is the diameter of one cup of the spinning rotor, or three cups in the three-layer stack shown ...