By: Jeesica Lopez & Jimmy Castillo The Furious By: Jeesica Lopez & Jimmy Castillo

The Blade Design Process

Our team’s initial blade designs. Design #1: 18” long with a width of 4 1/2” Blades designed to be aerodynamic Design #2: Designed to look like a teardrop Team’s decision: My teammate and I both agreed that Design #1 would pick up the air more evenly causing it to have a consistent airflow. We agreed that design #2 would not be as aerodynamic and would not have a consistent air flow, causing drag. Material: Our team chose cardboard because it is durable, easily accessible, and easy to work with. Design #1 & #2, Cardboard

The Experiment

Our team focused on 3 variables material, pitch and size. My teammate and I both started out with cardboard and observed that even changing the pitch, it wasn’t going fast enough. Plastic board was the next option and we saw great results. The second variable was adjusting the pitch. It ranged from 10 to 35 degrees. Each pitch had there own impact of speed and flow of wind. With testing we saw that 20 degrees had the most outcome. Length increase was another thing we decided to change, we thought the bigger we go, the more power output potential it had.

The Final Blade Design

Our final design was more focused on speed, we did do our adjustments and saw great impacts in each step. The final design was increased 2” in length, making it 20” long. The pitch ended up being 20 degrees with high power output of 58.5 mws.

The Turbine Stand

The base of the turbine was designed to provide support against the force of the wind, allowing the blades to spin with a durable base. The material we used to make it with is PVC pipe. The PVC material used is durable and inexpensive. The biggest benefit is that it is easy to build.

The Nacelle

Our teacher provided us with a Nacelle kit and the kit was altered to increase the gear ratio. The kit was designed to use 1 set of gears so it was modified to work with 2 sets of gears. The nacelle running with 2 sets of gears allows the generator to run with a ratio of 32:1.

Conclusion

Our experimentation allowed us to try different blades designs and configurations to best fit the Nacelle with the high gear ratio. Once completed our turbine had great results.