Wind Power Projects, Resources, Research, and News

DIY Wind Power Projects
 Chispito Wind Generator


Open Source Wind Power Resources
AWS Open Wind:  info@awsopenwind.org


Free (public domain) Book: Capturing Energy from the Wind, from the NASA Scientific and Technical Information Branch, by James L. Schefter, 1982

Get free books about wind power via craftsmanspace.com renewable energy books page

80 meter wind map of the US via windpoweringamerica.gov

Wind Power Research


Study of the Performance and Robustness of NREL and NACA Blade for Wind Turbine Applications: This study predicts that major power gains (~10-50% over the wind speed range of 3-9mph) would result from building small home-use wind turbines using the airfoils designed for horizontal axis wind turbines by the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) as opposed to the currently common practice of using airfoils NASA designed for aircraft back when the agency was still called NACA. As you can see in table 1 and in figure 3 (click here, scroll down), the NREL and NACA airfoils look almost identical. I suspect that using either type would yield a vast improvement over the current DIY standard of cut up PVC pipe.

Aerodynamic Shape Optimization of Vertical Axis Wind Turbine Using Differential Evolution: Summarizes the preliminary results of a UT Arlington Aerospace Engineering group's efforts to create an automated airfoil optimization code. Bonus: if you want to learn the basics of wind power theory, read the introduction to this paper. It'll be a great vocab lesson even if math isn't your thing. They published under the creative commons attribution license...cross your fingers that they will be just as generous with the source code they're working so hard to create.

Wind Power News
 Eole Water's wind turbine generates fresh clean drinking water from condensation
kgens kite-based wind power concept 

Notes:
I am looking to use crowd-sourced engineering to develop a tool for optimizing airfoils, generators, and power storage systems for a variety of user-defined constraints like local wind conditions, available space, construction materials and techniques, and cost.

I would like to see a computational fluid dynamics code used to select the airfoil shapes best for given wind speed and size constraints, export those shapes to a 3D CAD system which feeds them into a CNC hot-wire cutter which will print the airfoils out of rigid foam.  The airfoils can then be covered/strengthened with fiberglass or carbon fiber composite, sanded smooth, and attached to the hub.