Schooling fish inspire efficient wind farms

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Schooling fish inspire efficient wind farms

Schooling fish inspire efficient wind farms
Designs rely on individuals capturing energy to operate more efficiently

By Jessica Marshall

updated 2:36 p.m. ET, Mon., Nov . 30, 2009

The patterns that schooling fish form to save energy while swimming have inspired a new wind farm design that researchers say will increase the amount of power produced per acre by at least tenfold.

"For the fish, they are trying to minimize the energy that they consume to swim from Point A to Point B," said John Dabiri of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, who led the study. "In our case, we're looking at the opposite problem: How to we maximize the amount of energy that we collect?"
....

Like the fish, these spinning turbines generate a swirling wake. The energy in this flow can be gathered by neighboring turbines if they are placed close enough together and in the right position. By capturing this wake, two turbines close together can generate more power than each acting alone.

This contrasts with common, pinwheel-style wind turbines where the wake from one interferes with its neighbors, reducing the neighbors' efficiency. The vortexes occur in the wrong orientation for the neighboring turbines to capture them.
....

"If we just mimic the fish wake, we can do pretty well," Dabiri said. "But, as engineers, maybe we're smarter than fish. It turns out that for this application there is even better performance to be had."

[mbperrin]

1. Excellent.

Wind is a big part of our future.

[laughingliberal]

2. Well, we have plenty of it here-northern NV nt

[joshcryer]

3. Found the presentation abstract, it's written by a graduate student:

http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/DFD09/Event/111920

Here's his home page: http://www.whittlesey.us/

Very unique way to go about it.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. I took one course in what he's getting his doctorate in.

I barely passed it.

Thanks for the link.

[The2ndWheel]

5. Finally

"For the fish, they are trying to minimize the energy that they consume to swim from Point A to Point B," said John Dabiri of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, who led the study. "In our case, we're looking at the opposite problem: How to we maximize the amount of energy that we collect?"

At least this guy is being honest about it. Usually things like this are talked about in terms of conserving energy, which never makes a lick of sense, since we wouldn't invest all this time, money, and energy into finding a way to use less, as that would be a poor investment with negative returns on it.

[TxRider]

8. I thought they were trying to look like a big fish and stay alive.

Schooling for protection, grouping as a counter predation scheme.

[phantom power]

6. Clever -- I notice their design requires vertical shaft turbines.

[joshcryer]

7. BTW, I emailed the author of this, asking for slides, he said we'll have to wait until next summer.

He's writing a paper for his doctorate, and it won't be available until then. I really am looking forward to this one.