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#11
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"Nice idea, but among other things, a turbine blade is designed to cope
with the fact that the effective airspeed of the inner portion of the "wing" is always somewhat less than the outer portion" Not a problem, as long as you always thermal in the same direction. Of course you'd fall out of the sky if you tried to fly straight, kind of like a PW5. |
#12
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Bill Daniels wrote:
The blades themselves are not useful as glider wings but some parts of the manufacturing base that makes them might be adapted to produce wings. Other way around, perhaps? I "read" (my German is very rudimentary)a history of Schempp-Hirth a few years ago and saw photos of wind turbine blades being manufactured some time in the late 50s/early 60s. Does anybody have any details? I also understand that a lot of glider wing aerodynamics is actually a spinoff from research paid for by wind turbine builders. Eppler, for one, did turbine work I believe. Again, does anyone know any facts? GC |
#13
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I remember seeing wood-epoxy wind-turbine blades being built at Gudgeon
Bros. in Bay City, MI in the seventies. Their primary business at the time was building cold-molded DN iceboats, multihull ocean racers and packaging and selling WEST System epoxy. Meade Gudgeon said they got the windmill business because of their demonstrated ability to build long, thin, light hydrodynamically efficient structures. My guess would be that the windmill folks learned more from the sailboat and glider folks than the other way round. Ray Warshaw 1LK "Graeme Cant" wrote in message ... Bill Daniels wrote: The blades themselves are not useful as glider wings but some parts of the manufacturing base that makes them might be adapted to produce wings. Other way around, perhaps? I "read" (my German is very rudimentary)a history of Schempp-Hirth a few years ago and saw photos of wind turbine blades being manufactured some time in the late 50s/early 60s. Does anybody have any details? I also understand that a lot of glider wing aerodynamics is actually a spinoff from research paid for by wind turbine builders. Eppler, for one, did turbine work I believe. Again, does anyone know any facts? GC |
#14
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Graeme Cant wrote:
Bill Daniels wrote: The blades themselves are not useful as glider wings but some parts of the manufacturing base that makes them might be adapted to produce wings. Other way around, perhaps? I "read" (my German is very rudimentary)a history of Schempp-Hirth a few years ago and saw photos of wind turbine blades being manufactured some time in the late 50s/early 60s. Does anybody have any details? I also understand that a lot of glider wing aerodynamics is actually a spinoff from research paid for by wind turbine builders. Eppler, for one, did turbine work I believe. Again, does anyone know any facts? GC Not sure when they may have actually started wind turbine construction, but I was shown some composite turbine blades when I visited Schempp-Hirch Kirchheim in 1980. Saw some of the first Ventus production also. Very kind of them to show a drop in visitor around. Frank Whiteley |
#15
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Graeme Cant wrote: Bill Daniels wrote: The blades themselves are not useful as glider wings but some parts of the manufacturing base that makes them might be adapted to produce wings. Other way around, perhaps? I "read" (my German is very rudimentary)a history of Schempp-Hirth a few years ago and saw photos of wind turbine blades being manufactured some time in the late 50s/early 60s. Does anybody have any details? I also understand that a lot of glider wing aerodynamics is actually a spinoff from research paid for by wind turbine builders. Eppler, for one, did turbine work I believe. Again, does anyone know any facts? GC Mr Hanle of Glasflugel(Glasswing) was very active in the development of turbine blades as a parallel activity to many contributions to developing the art of building sailplanes. Possibly the photos of blades were taken about the time that S/H was in the process of absorbing Glasflugel after his death. UH |
#16
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#17
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Andreas Maurer wrote:
We have a couple of guys in my club who earn their living by designing and building such rotors (blade length up to 200 ft - per blade!) - believe me, noone is going to want a glider that is built with the same quality as a wind energy rotor. Is that because the quality is too poor, or because the quality is too high to afford? -- Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly Eric Greenwell Washington State USA |
#18
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Also as I recall the last Turbine Blade I saw did look very simlar to
my glider wing. However if i remember correctly I believe it weighed almost 1200 lbs (maybe it was 600) for one blade. My whole glider weighs less than 600 lbs. I suspect they like the weight in the turbine blades to help reduce the effects of gusts on it. Brian Case HP16T |
#19
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Well, I have been on a tour of the wind energy installation on the Tehachapi
Pass, and there were a couple of broken blades around. Having looked at them, I wouldn't dare to bord a glider made with that level of quality... -- Bert Willing ASW20 "TW" "Eric Greenwell" a écrit dans le message de news: ... Andreas Maurer wrote: We have a couple of guys in my club who earn their living by designing and building such rotors (blade length up to 200 ft - per blade!) - believe me, noone is going to want a glider that is built with the same quality as a wind energy rotor. Is that because the quality is too poor, or because the quality is too high to afford? -- Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly Eric Greenwell Washington State USA |
#20
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Earlier, Eric Greenwell wrote:
Is that because the quality is too poor, or because the quality is too high to afford? I've always been fascinated by the use of the word "high" to mean "great," "strong," "good," and "senior." I think that it speaks to the nature in which the appreciation for flight is hardwired into at least some people. Like us, for example... Anyhow, based on the blade crawled into at Tehachapi, I would definitely not say that wind turbines are lesser quality, they are just optimized differently. And those optimizations seem to favor low cost and low build hours over freedom from waviness and fine surface finish. They are also optimized to operate unattended for long periods of time, so the airfoil selection for them is predicated on a certain amount of roughness from dust and bird crap. Beyond that, many of you know that I ascribe to Pirsig's view of quality, that it lies at the interface between subject and object (in fact, it _is_ the interface!) and is not inherent in either the subject or the object. Aristotle and his cronies get way too much credit for founding western philosophy on the unstable underpinnings of absolute truth and relative quality. Thanks, and best regards to all Bob K. http://www.hpaircraft.com |
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