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Nature’s Wind Turbines: The Measured Aerodynamic Efficiency of Spinning Seeds Approaches Theoretical Limits

This paper describe a procedure to measure experimentally the power coefficient, [Formula: see text] , of winged seeds, and apply this technique to seeds from the Norway maple (Acer platanoides). We measure [Formula: see text] at a tip speed ratio of [Formula: see text]. Our results are in agreement...

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Autor principal: Molteno, Timothy C. A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9589966/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36278718
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomimetics7040161
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author Molteno, Timothy C. A.
author_facet Molteno, Timothy C. A.
author_sort Molteno, Timothy C. A.
collection PubMed
description This paper describe a procedure to measure experimentally the power coefficient, [Formula: see text] , of winged seeds, and apply this technique to seeds from the Norway maple (Acer platanoides). We measure [Formula: see text] at a tip speed ratio of [Formula: see text]. Our results are in agreement with previously published CFD simulations that indicate that these seeds—operating in low-Reynolds number conditions—approach the Betz limit ([Formula: see text]) the maximum possible efficiency for a wind turbine. In addition, this result is not consistent with the recent theoretical work of Okulov & Sørensen, which suggests that a single-bladed turbine with a tip-speed ratio of 3.2 can achieve a power efficiency of no more than 30%.
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spelling pubmed-95899662022-10-25 Nature’s Wind Turbines: The Measured Aerodynamic Efficiency of Spinning Seeds Approaches Theoretical Limits Molteno, Timothy C. A. Biomimetics (Basel) Article This paper describe a procedure to measure experimentally the power coefficient, [Formula: see text] , of winged seeds, and apply this technique to seeds from the Norway maple (Acer platanoides). We measure [Formula: see text] at a tip speed ratio of [Formula: see text]. Our results are in agreement with previously published CFD simulations that indicate that these seeds—operating in low-Reynolds number conditions—approach the Betz limit ([Formula: see text]) the maximum possible efficiency for a wind turbine. In addition, this result is not consistent with the recent theoretical work of Okulov & Sørensen, which suggests that a single-bladed turbine with a tip-speed ratio of 3.2 can achieve a power efficiency of no more than 30%. MDPI 2022-10-12 /pmc/articles/PMC9589966/ /pubmed/36278718 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomimetics7040161 Text en © 2022 by the author. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Molteno, Timothy C. A.
Nature’s Wind Turbines: The Measured Aerodynamic Efficiency of Spinning Seeds Approaches Theoretical Limits
title Nature’s Wind Turbines: The Measured Aerodynamic Efficiency of Spinning Seeds Approaches Theoretical Limits
title_full Nature’s Wind Turbines: The Measured Aerodynamic Efficiency of Spinning Seeds Approaches Theoretical Limits
title_fullStr Nature’s Wind Turbines: The Measured Aerodynamic Efficiency of Spinning Seeds Approaches Theoretical Limits
title_full_unstemmed Nature’s Wind Turbines: The Measured Aerodynamic Efficiency of Spinning Seeds Approaches Theoretical Limits
title_short Nature’s Wind Turbines: The Measured Aerodynamic Efficiency of Spinning Seeds Approaches Theoretical Limits
title_sort nature’s wind turbines: the measured aerodynamic efficiency of spinning seeds approaches theoretical limits
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9589966/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36278718
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomimetics7040161
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