assignment
Plan and sketch a potential final project
Final project. Wind harvester.
Fossil fuels, beside the environmental problems they cause, are condemned to depletion. Each time is harder and costlier to extract those dirty fuels from the ground. We need to find other means for our energy requirements.
We have been burning fossil fuels for two hundred years. For nature, the accumulation of energy in the covalent bonds of it's chemical structure took thousands of millions of years.
Energy harvesting is an alternative to change the trend.
On November 7th, 1940, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed under a relative mild wind (40 mile-per-hour or 64 km/h).
The phenomena is still studied as an engineering example of harmonic motion and aeroelastic flutter effect.
The forces involved in this processes could be very destructive, and this have to be taken on account for infrastructure design, but also could be useful in the design of new forms of energy harvesting from moving fluids.
This sketch idea comes from a previous work of Shawn Fayne. He explored the harvesting of wind energy exploiting the aeroflutter effect.
In this system, the vibration of a membrane is used to induce an electric current in a coil through a movement of a magnet an a coil.
My proposal is a system that replaces the coil and magnet for a piezoelectric transducing system. The energy generated will be used to charge small appliances and communication devices.
The system is also though to vary the tension of the membrane, and that way adapting to different wind speeds.
The crystal configuration of piezoelectric materials "kicks out" an electron when is subject to mechanical stress. These electrons are harvested, stored and used for electrical applications.
Here is a video of previous attempts of exploring this technology.
The wind creates alternativelly a high and low preassure in oposites sides of the membrane.
Energy is harvested using a piezo-electic couple. Alternate electricity is generated, what allow us to send it with relative low lost.
The tension of the system could be also controlled, maximizing the energy harvesting. This will be done using gears for mechanical advantage.
Microphones are going to be used for measure both the wind speed and direction. Two microphones will be used for direction, calculating the difference between the two values.
This is the prelilminary design of the project. For the research and development documentation, please CLIC HERE.