Wind Turbine Design

705 Words3 Pages
Blade Design By: Robert Hoppe The first major step in the turbine project was to design and build the turbine blade. To design the blade we used a computer program called Auto Desk Inventor that allows the user to create 3D mottles that can then be built using a special 3D printer. The groups were first given a file containing the hub of the blade that was designed to fit onto the electric motor that would later use for power monitoring. The blade its self could then be mottled right off of the hub to produce a perfect fit and finish. Figure 1: Hub This is an image of the hub given in the file which served as the basis for our blade. Every group was given the same hub because it was specially designed to fit the testing equipment. (2) The team decided that the best choice of design for the blade would be to make long, thin blades that was as wide as possible at the base but came to a very small point at the end. The hypothesis with this design was that it would allow for the most amount of force to be produced at the base where the blades were spinning slower. Since the ends of the blades move so much faster than the base, they were designed to be narrow and thin while still keeping the wing like shape to produce lift. This would allow for maximum RPM’s and a lot of power generation with little drag. With a design plan in mind the team used some the design techniques acquired in the class to lay out the design for a single blade. The first step in doing this was to create a work plain in auto desk. From there the outline of the hub its self was projected onto the plain to serve as the base for the blade. A second plain was created at edge of our size limit and the shape of the blade base was replicated as small as possible. In addition, the tip of the blade was twisted at an angle from the base of the blade so that the tip would cut
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