A SEMINAR REPORT ON ELECTRO STATIC PRECIPATOR

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of the degree of

Bachelors of Technology
In MECHANICAL From

Rajasthan Technical University Kota (Rajasthan)

Submitted to
Mr. Iqbal Mohammad (Asst. Proff. of Mechanical.)

Submitted By
CHITRANSH Roll No. (09EMCME016)

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING MODERN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY AND RESEARCH CENTRE ALWAR(RAJ.)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I extend my sincere gratitude towards Mr. Mr. Iqbal Mohammad (Asst. Proff. of Mechanical.)for giving us this invincible knowledge and technical guidance. I express my thanks to all staff members of mechanical engineering department for their kind co-operation and guidance. I also thank all the other faculty members of ME department and my friends for their endless support.

Deevan Singh

09EMCME019

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ABSTRACT
Engineering is a theoretical study as well as practical study but it is an implantation of all we study for creating something new and making things more easy and useful through practical study. The electricity produced in India by thermal power plants and hydroelectric power plants are not sufficient as per the requirements and the loss of electricity and theft of electricity is more in these processes. Thus, we have an idea of generating electricity by using wind energy. The wind energy is readily available, abundant in quantity and also the cleanest source of energy. It can be used for multiple purposes like generation of electricity, compression of fluids and pumping of fluids. In this project we will use a generator of appropriate volt, wind turbine, gear attachments. The main objective of this project is to convert the mechanical forces into electricity with the help of wind turbine.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATE AKNOWLEDGEMENT ABSTRACT Chapter Name 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 HISTORY 2 TRENDS IN GENERATION OF ELECTRICITY 2.1 THERMAL ENERGY 2.2 HYDRO ENERGY 2.3 NUCLEAR ENERGY 2.4 SOLAR ENERGY 2.5 WIND ENERGY 3 TECHNICAL DETAILS 3.1 WIND TURBINE 3.2 DESIGN BASICS 3.2.1 MATCHING THE ROTOR TO THE GENERATOR 3.3 BLADES 3.3.1 TYPES OF BLADES iv I II III

3.3.2 3.3.3 3.3.4

BLADE COUNT BLADE DESIGN BLADE MATERIALS

3.4 GENERATOR 3.4.1 GENERATOR CHARACTERSTICS 3.5 TOWER 3.5.1 TOWER HEIGHT 3.6 WIND RESOURCE 4 FUTURE SCOPE OF WIND ENERGY

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The report suggests about wind energy.In this seminar report we will learn that what is wind energy in actual and what wind energy is used for. We know that electricity is the most one need of everyone in this world. The growth of all the countries in this world is based on the electricity and to fill up this need, there are many large electrical power plants are established to generate the electricity. In india the electricity is generated in the thermal power plants or hydroelectric power plants. India is a large country and the consumption of power or electricity in India is very much. The power generation using thermal power plants is very costly. To overcome this problem the wind energy comes to take action.

Wind Energy is the kind of energy that is produced by wind. Wind energy is mostly used in the wind turbines and wind turbines can be used to generate the electricity. To produce the electricity with wind energy we need only three things that are wind turbine, generator and gear boxes. The wind turbine can be drived automatically with the help of wind energy and the generator is used to convert this mechanical energy into the electrical energy. Wind energy is a kinetic energy and this is converted into the mechanical energy by wind turbine and this mechanical energy is converted into electrical energy by generator.A simple and one wind turbine can produce the electricity sufficient for charging a battery but if someone needs to generate a high amount of electricity, more wind turbines can be concated using gear boxes. Wind is the most powerful force in the world and why should one not use this natural resource (wind energy) to generate the electricity.

Wind energy can be used not only for producing the electrical power but also it can drive the wind mills and wind pumps for irrigating the field.The force of the wind can be very strong, as can be seen after the passage of a hurricane or a typhoon. Historically, people have harnessed this force peacefully, its most important usage probably being the propulsion of ships using sails before the invention of the steam engine and the internal combustion engine. Wind has also been used in windmills to grind grain or to pump water for irrigation or, as in The Netherlands, to prevent the ocean from flooding low-lying land. At the beginning of the twentieth century electricity came into use and windmills gradually became wind turbines as the rotor was connected to an electric generator vi

1.1 HISTORY Windmills were used in Persia (present-day Iran) as early as 200 B.C.The wind wheel of Heron of Alexandria marks one of the first known instances of wind powering a machine in history. However, the first known practical windmills were built in Sistan, a region between Afghanistan and Iran, from the 7th century. These "Panemone" were vertical axle windmills, which had long vertical driveshaft with rectangular blades. Made of six to twelve sails covered in reed matting or cloth material, these windmills were used to grind grain or draw up water, and were used in the gristmilling and sugarcane industries. Windmills first appeared in Europe during the middle ages. The first historical records of their use in England date to the 11th or 12th centuries and there are reports of German crusaders taking their windmill-making skills to Syria around 1190. By the 14th century, Dutch windmills were in use to drain areas of the Rhine delta. The first electricity generating wind turbine, was a battery charging machine installed in July 1887 by Scottish academic James Blyth to light his holiday home in Marykirk, Scotland. Some months later American inventor Charles F Brush built the first automatically operated wind turbine for electricity production in Cleveland, Ohio. Although Blyth's turbine was considered uneconomical in the United Kingdom electricity generation by wind turbines was more cost effective in countries with widely scattered populations. In Denmark by 1900, there were about 2500 windmills for mechanical loads such as pumps and mills, producing an estimated combined peak power of about 30 MW. The largest machines were on 24-metre (79 ft) towers with four-bladed 23-metre (75 ft) diameter rotors. By 1908 there were 72 wind-driven electric generators operating in the US from 5 kW to 25 kW. Around the time of World War I, American windmill makers were producing 100,000 farm windmills each year, mostly for water-pumping. By the 1930s, wind generators for electricity were common on farms, mostly in the United States where distribution systems had not yet been installed. In this period, high-tensile steel was cheap, and the generators were placed atop prefabricated open steel lattice towers. vii

A forerunner of modern horizontal-axis wind generators was in service at Yalta, USSR in 1931. This was a 100 kW generator on a 30-metre (98 ft) tower, connected to the local 6.3 kV distribution system. It was reported to have an annual capacity factor of 32 per cent, not much different from current wind machines. In the fall of 1941, the first megawatt-class wind turbine was synchronized to a utility grid in Vermont. The Smith-Putnam wind turbine only ran for 1,100 hours before suffering a critical failure. The unit was not repaired because of shortage of materials during the war.

Figure- The first automatically operated wind turbine. Courtsey:Wikipedia(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine)

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CHAPTER 2 TRENDS OF GENERATION OF ELECTRICITY 2.1 THERMAL ENERGY A thermal power station is a power plant in which the prime mover is steam driven. Water is heated, turns into steam and spins a steam turbine which drives an electrical generator. After it passes through the turbine, the steam is condensed in a condenser and recycled to where it was heated; this is known as a Rankine cycle. The greatest variation in the design of thermal power stations is due to the different fuel sources. Some prefer to use the term energy center because such facilities convert forms of heat energy into electricity.
[1]

Some thermal power plants also deliver heat energy for industrial purposes, for district

heating, or for desalination of water as well as delivering electrical power. A large part of human CO2 emissions comes from fossil fueled thermal power plants; efforts to reduce these outputs are various and widespread.

2.2 HYDRO POWER Hydropower, hydraulic power, hydrokinetic power or water power is power that is derived from the force or energy of falling water, which may be harnessed for useful purposes. Since ancient times, hydropower has been used for irrigation and the operation of various mechanical devices, such as watermills, sawmills, textile mills, dock cranes, and domestic lifts. Since the early 20th century, the term is used almost exclusively in conjunction with the modern development of hydro-electric power, the energy of which could be transmitted considerable distance between where it was created to where it was consumed. Another previous method used to transmit energy had employed a trompe, which produces compressed air from falling water that could then be piped to power other machinery at a distance from the energy source. Water's power is manifested in hydrology, by the forces of water on the riverbed and banks of a river. When a river is in flood, it is at its most powerful, and moves the greatest amount of sediment. This higher force results in the removal of sediment and other material ix

from the riverbed and banks of the river, locally causing erosion, transport and, with lower flow, sedimentation downstream 2.3 NUCLEAR POWER Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 1314% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity. In 2007 there were 439 nuclear power reactors in operation in the world, operating in 31 countries. Also, more than 150 naval vessels using nuclear propulsion have been built. 2.4 SOLAR POWER Solar energy, radiant light and heat from the sun, has been harnessed by humans since ancient times using a range of ever-evolving technologies. Solar energy technologies include solar heating, solar photovoltaic, solar thermal electricity and solar architecture, which can make considerable contributions to solving some of the most urgent problems the world now faces. Solar technologies are broadly characterized as either passive solar or active solar depending on the way they capture, convert and distribute solar energy. Active solar techniques include the use of photovoltaic panels and solar thermal collectors to harness the energy. Passive solar techniques include orienting a building to the Sun, selecting materials with favourable thermal mass or light dispersing properties, and designing spaces that naturally circulate air. In 2011, the International Energy Agency said that "the development of affordable, inexhaustible and clean solar energy technologies will have huge longer-term benefits. It will increase countries energy security through reliance on an indigenous, inexhaustible and mostly import-independent resource, enhance sustainability, reduce pollution, lower the costs of mitigating climate change, and keep fossil fuel prices lower than otherwise. These advantages are global. Hence the additional costs of the incentives for early deployment should be considered learning investments; they must be wisely spent and need to be widely shared".

2.5 WIND ENERGY Wind is simply air in motion. It is caused by the uneven heating of the Earths surface by radiant energy from the sun. Since the Earths surface is made of very different types of land and water, it absorbs the suns energy at different rates. Water usually does not heat or cool as quickly as land because of its physical properties. An ideal situation for the formation of local wind is an area where land and water meet. During the day, the air above the land heats up more quickly than the air above water. The warm air over the land expands, becomes less dense and rises. The heavier, denser, cool air over the water flows in to take its place, creating wind. In the same way, the atmospheric winds that circle the Earth are created because the land near the equator is heated more by the sun than land near the North and South Poles.

CHAPTER 3 TECHNICAL DETAILS 3.1 WIND TURBINE Wind turbines are designed to exploit the wind energy that exists at a location. Aerodynamic modelling is used to determine the optimum tower height, control systems, number of blades and blade shape. Wind turbines convert wind energy to electricity for distribution. Conventional horizontal axis turbines can be divided into three components.

The rotor component, which is approximately 20% of the wind turbine the blades for converting wind energy to low speed rotational energy.

cost, includes

The generator component, which is approximately 34% of the wind turbine cost, includes the electrical generator, the control electronics, and most likely a gearbox (e.g. planetary gearbox adjustable-speed drive. or continuously variable transmission])

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component for converting the low speed incoming rotation to high speed rotation suitable for generating electricity.

The structural support component, which is approximately 15% of the wind turbine cost, includes the tower and rotor yaw mechanism.

A 1.5 MW wind turbine of a type frequently seen in the United States has a tower 80 meters high. The rotor assembly (blades and hub) weighs 48,000 pounds (22,000 kg). The nacelle, which contains the generator component, weighs 115,000 pounds (52,000 kg). The concrete base for the tower is constructed using 58,000 pounds (26,000 kg) of reinforcing steel and contains 250 cubic yards (190 cubic meters) of concrete. The base is 50 feet (15 m) in diameter and 8 feet (2.4 m) thick near the centre.

Like old-fashioned windmills, todays wind turbines use blades to capture the winds kinetic energy. Wind turbines work because they slow down the speed of the wind. When the wind blows, it pushes against the blades of the wind turbine, making them spin. They power a generator to produce electricity. Most wind turbines have the same basic parts: blades, shafts, gears, a generator, and a cable. (Some turbines do not have gearboxes.) These parts work together to convert the winds energy into electricity. 1. The wind blows and pushes against the blades on top of the tower, making them spin. 2. The turbine blades are connected to a low-speed drive shaft. When the blades spin, the shaft turns. The shaft is connected to a gearbox. The gears in the gearbox increase the speed of the spinning motion on a high-speed drive shaft. 3. The high-speed drive shaft is connected to a generator. As the shaft turns inside the generator, it produces electricity. 4. The electricity is sent through a cable down the turbine tower to a transmission line. The amount of electricity that a turbine produces depends on its size and the speed of the wind. Wind turbines come in many different sizes. A small turbine may power one home. Large wind turbines can produce enough electricity to power up to 1,000 homes.

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ADVANTAGES OF WIND TURBINE Cost Wind is free. This means unlike other fuel sources, there is no cost for materials used to create power. Wind is also a continuing resource, and will not run out from overuse. Environment Once a wind turbine is built, the energy created does not emit greenhouse gasses, so the effect on the ozone is basically nothing. There are no pollutants, like with coal or fossil fuels. Size Wind turbines are very tall, but they take up a relatively small plot of land. This means the surrounding land can still be used for things, like farming. Wind turbines can also be placed pretty much anywhere. Range of Use Wind turbines come in a variety of sizes. This makes them accessible in ways other power conversion methods are not. Homes, corporations or giant wind farms, can all convert wind for power usage. Expansion of Power Remote areas that are not easily connected into main power grids, can establish wind turbines, and thus create their own power. This allows them to sustain themselves much easier, and also means that Third World nations can expand and tap into energy in a new way.

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3.2 DESIGN BASICS 3.2.1 MATCHING THE ROTOR TO THE GENERATOR For a given size of rotor, it is tempting to use a very large generator, to make use of the high power in high winds. But, for a given size of generator it is tempting to use a very large rotor, so as to obtain full power in low winds. A big generator with a small rotor will very seldom be operating at rated power, so it will be disappointing, especially if the generator's part-load efficiency is poor. A small generator with a large rotor will achieve full power in low winds, giving a more constant power supply. The drawbacks are that the larger rotor will: need a stronger tower run at lower rpm require more control in high winds The usual compromise is to choose a generator which reaches full output in a wind speed around ten metres per second (10 m/s).It is also vital to match the rotational speed (rpm) of these two components, for which we need to understand their power/ speed characteristics. 3.2.2 TIP SPEED RATIO The speed of the tip of one blade depends on the revolutions per minute (or rpm), and the rotor diameter. For example, the tip of a two metre diameter rotor, running at 500 rpm, travels at about 52 metres per second. This is over 100 mph! Operating tip speeds of up to 134 m/s (300 mph) are not unknown, but for the sake of a quiet life you should try to keep it below 80 m/s. Tip speed ratio is the magic number which most concisely describes the rotor of a windmill. It is how many times faster than the wind speed the blade tip is designed to run. A windmill rotor does not simply have a best rotational speed (e.g. 600 rpm). Its optimum rpm will depend on the wind speed, the diameter and the tip speed ratio. The windmill rotor will do best at a particular tip speed ratio, but it will inevitably have to work over a range of speeds. The power coefficient 'ep' will vary depending on tip speed ratio, for any particular rotor design. It will be best at the 'design' or 'rated' tip speed ratio, but acceptable over a range of speeds designed to operate at a tip speed ratio of 7. A small shift in rpm or wind speed will not make much difference. If the rpm is too low, compared to the wind, then it will stall, and performance will drop. If there is no load on the rotor (perhaps because a wire has broken in the electrical circuit), the rotor will over speed until xiv

it reaches a certain point, where it becomes so inefficient that it has no power to go faster. Most windmills are quite noisy and alarming at runaway tip speed.

3.3 BLADES 3.3.1 TYPES OF BLADES Wind turbines are one of the oldest devices in existence used for generating power. With time, design aspects of wind generators have steadily improved, especially when it comes to how the blades that are responsible for turning the turbines rotors have been built. Today, wind turbines generate much more power from much less wind than ever before, which is largely thanks to these improvements .The earliest wind turbine blades were basically just large mats made from reeds . While they did the job under some conditions, they werent very durable. The short lifespan of this type of blade led inventors to seek out other options. Cloth sails were the next step in the development of wind turbine blades. Thanks to this blade design, early windmills were able to harness wind power effectively in order to process grain. The next major kind of blade to be introduced was the wood blade, which was often used in conjunction with a horizontal axis configuration. This development mimicked those seen in the world of aeronautics, as improving rotors often had these characteristics. Although much lighter, wooden blades were nevertheless able to provide much more power than earlier turbine blades. Electricity was generated for the first time from wind turbines thanks to these designs. The earliest wind turbines of this type were relatively small in size, but they would soon be enlarged and used for commercial purposes. In order to meet divergent requirements, the differences between horizontal axis turbine blade designs and vertical axis blade designs started to become even more distinct. With regard to horizontal axis blade design, most of the changes would manifest themselves as differences in blade shape and pitch, materials, and the number of blades used per rotor.

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Due to their strong balance of stability and rotor speed, 3-blade designs came to be the standard for horizontal axis wind turbines. In many current turbines, composite blades are used, which are extremely strong and flexible in addition to being lightweight, making them excellent for both residential and commercial uses. Unlike previous generations of turbines, these new turbines can both spin at higher speeds and pick up winds of lower velocity. For vertical axis wind turbines too, there are a number of new designs available currently, appropriate for a wide variety of purposes. The rotation for these units is usually provided by features that take advantage of either the lift or drag of the wind. The big advantage of vertical axis wind turbine designs is their capacity to generate power regardless of wind direction. In this regard, they provide a more consistent supply of power than standard horizontal axis turbines. Whats more, because vertical axis turbines usually dont require a tower, theyre often favored by residential users. There are several excellent formulas out there which are a bit more scientific, but the goal here is to keep things simple and inexpensive. We dont believe we need to use a terribly thick board, or have really steep angles at the root like most correct formulas would tell us. Here we make blades from standard 2" thick lumber. The very steep pitch that most blade formulas would call for at the root requires much thicker lumber. Such blades are a bit more work - the wood is more expensive and they may start-up easier in low winds, although we don't believe that's an issue, especially with very free spinning dual rotor alternators. Machines we make with blades start turning in very low winds (below 5mph) and come up to speed quickly - they seem very responsive. They also seem reasonably efficient across the range of wind speeds. 10' diameter machines we use these blades on frequently produce over 1000 watts in winds below 30 mph and they seem quite reasonable in lower winds. There are lots of ways of doing things. We prefer to make blades from wood for the following reasons. It's easy to work with, a person can make a nice blade from wood with simple tools fairly quickly. It's fairly inexpensive. It has an excellent strength/weight ratio, and it stands up to fatigue very well. If its finished reasonably well and maintained it can last practically forever. I've seen 70 year old Win chargers running with their original Cedar blades. Lots of different types of wood can be used. It seems like lighter weight xvi

'pines' are the best bet - white pine, fir, Spruce ... we've used lodgepole. Lately Cedar has been our favourite, its very light, very easy to work... it doesn't rot. We've made blade sets from single boards - lately we prefer to laminate up smaller boards, it makes things a bit stronger and we can use less expensive lumber. Simple tools are required to work with wood. The whole job could be done with a drawknife, a hand saw, and a plane. A hammer, chisel can be handy sometimes too. A few power tools can speed things up a lot. 3.3.2 BLADE DESIGN The ratio between the speed of the blade tips and the speed of the wind is called tip speed ratio. High efficiency 3-blade-turbines have tip speed/wind speed ratios of 6 to 7. Modern wind turbines are designed to spin at varying speeds. Use of aluminium and composite materials in their blades has contributed to low rotational inertia, which means that newer wind turbines can accelerate quickly if the winds pick up, keeping the tip speed ratio more nearly constant. Operating closer to their optimal tip speed ratio during energetic gusts of wind allows wind turbines to improve energy capture from sudden gusts that are typical in urban settings. In contrast, older style wind turbines were designed with heavier steel blades, which have higher inertia, and rotated at speeds governed by the AC frequency of the power lines. The high inertia buffered the changes in rotation speed and thus made power output more stable. The speed and torque at which a wind turbine rotates must be controlled for several reasons:

To optimize the aerodynamic efficiency of the rotor in light winds. To keep the generator within its speed and torque limits. To keep the rotor and hub within their centrifugal force limits. The centrifugal force from the spinning rotors increases as the square of the rotation speed, which makes this structure sensitive to over speed.

To keep the rotor and tower within their strength limits. Because the power of the wind increases as the cube of the wind speed, turbines have to be built to survive much higher wind loads (such as gusts of wind) than those from which they can practically xvii

generate power. Since the blades generate more torsional and vertical forces (putting far greater stress on the tower and nacelle due to the tendency of the rotor to precess and nutate) when they are producing torque, most wind turbines have ways of reducing torque in high winds.

To enable maintenance. Since it is dangerous to have people working on a wind turbine while it is active, it is sometimes necessary to bring a turbine to a full stop. To reduce noise. As a rule of thumb, the noise from a wind turbine increases with the fifth power of the relative wind speed (as seen from the moving tip of the blades). In noise-sensitive environments, the tip speed can be limited to approximately 60 m/s (200 ft/s).

It is generally understood that noise increases with higher blade tip speeds. To increase tip speed without increasing noise would allow reduction the torque into the gearbox and generator and reduce overall structural loads, thereby reducing cost. The reduction of noise is linked to the detailed aerodynamics of the blades, especially factors that reduce abrupt stalling. The inability to predict stall restricts the development of aggressive aerodynamic concepts. 3.3.3 BLADE COUNT The determination of the number of blades involves design considerations of aerodynamic efficiency, component costs, system reliability, and aesthetics. Noise emissions are affected by the location of the blades upwind or downwind of the tower and the speed of the rotor. Given that the noise emissions from the blades' trailing edges and tips vary by the 5th power of blade speed, a small increase in tip speed can make a large difference. Wind turbines developed over the last 50 years have almost universally used either two or three blades. Aerodynamic efficiency increases with number of blades but with diminishing return. Increasing the number of blades from one to two yields a six percent increase in aerodynamic efficiency, whereas increasing the blade count from two to three yields only an additional three percent in efficiency. Further increasing the blade count yields minimal improvements in aerodynamic efficiency and sacrifices too much in blade stiffness as the blades become thinner.

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Component costs that are affected by blade count are primarily for materials and manufacturing of the turbine rotor and drive train. Generally, the fewer the number of blades, the lower the material and manufacturing costs will be. In addition, the fewer the number of blades, the higher the rotational speed can be. This is because blade stiffness requirements to avoid interference with the tower limit how thin the blades can be manufactured, but only for upwind machines; deflection of blades in a downwind machine results in increased tower clearance. Fewer blades with higher rotational speeds reduce peak torques in the drive train, resulting in lower gearbox and generator costs. System reliability is affected by blade count primarily through the dynamic loading of the rotor into the drive train and tower systems. While aligning the wind turbine to changes in wind direction (yawing), each blade experiences a cyclic load at its root end depending on blade position. This is true of one, two, three blades or more. However, these cyclic loads when combined together at the drive train shaft are symmetrically balanced for three blades, yielding smoother operation during turbine yaw. Turbines with one or two blades can use a pivoting teetered hub to also nearly eliminate the cyclic loads into the drive shaft and system during yawing. Finally, aesthetics can be considered a factor in that some people find that the three-bladed rotor is more pleasing to look at than a one- or two-bladed rotor. 3.3.4 BLADE MATERIALS Wood and canvas sails were used on early windmills due to their low price, availability, and ease of manufacture. Smaller blades can be made from light metals such as aluminium. These materials, however, require frequent maintenance. Wood and canvas construction limits the airfoil shape to a flat plate, which has a relatively high ratio of drag to force captured (low aerodynamic efficiency) compared to solid airfoils. Construction of solid airfoil designs requires inflexible materials such as metals or composites. New wind turbine designs push power generation from the single megawatt range to upwards of 10 megawatts using larger and larger blades. A larger area effectively increases the tip-speed ratio of a turbine at a given wind speed, thus increasing its energy extraction. Computer-aided engineering software such as HyperSizer can be used to improve blade design.

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Current production wind turbine blades are as large as 100 meters in diameter with prototypes in the range of 110 to 120 meters. In 2001, an estimated 50 million kilograms of fibreglass laminate were used in wind turbine blades. An important goal of larger blade systems is to control blade weight. Since blade mass scales as the cube of the turbine radius, loading due to gravity constrains systems with larger blades. Manufacturing blades in the 40 to 50 meter range involves proven fibreglass composite fabrication techniques. Manufactures such as Nordex and GE Wind use an infusion process. Other manufacturers use variations on this technique, some including carbon and wood with fibreglass in an epoxy matrix. Options also include prepreg fiberglass and vacuum-assisted resin transfer molding. Each of these options use a glass-fibre reinforced polymer composite constructed with differing complexity. Perhaps the largest issue with more simplistic, open-mold, wet systems are the emissions associated with the volatile organics released. Preimpregnated materials and resin infusion techniques avoid the release of volatiles by containing all reaction gases. However, these contained processes have their own challenges, namely the production of thick laminates necessary for structural components becomes more difficult. As the preform resin permeability dictates the maximum laminate thickness, bleeding is required to eliminate voids and insure proper resin distribution. One solution to resin distribution a partially preimpregnated fiberglass. During evacuation, the dry fabric provides a path for airflow and, once heat and pressure are applied, resin may flow into the dry region resulting in a thoroughly impregnated laminate structure. Epoxy-based composites have environmental, production, and cost advantages over other resin systems. Epoxies also allow shorter cure cycles, increased durability, and improved surface finish. Prepreg operations further reduce processing time over wet lay-up systems. As turbine blades pass 60 meters, infusion techniques become more prevalent; the traditional resin transfer moulding injection time is too long as compared to the resin set-up time, limiting laminate thickness. Injection forces resin through a thicker ply stack, thus depositing the resin where in the laminate structure before gelatine occurs. Specialized epoxy resins have been developed to customize lifetimes and viscosity.

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Carbon fibre-reinforced load-bearing spars can reduce weight and increase stiffness. Using carbon fibres in 60 meter turbine blades is estimated to reduce total blade mass by 38% and decrease cost by 14% compared to 100% fibreglass. Carbon fibres have the added benefit of reducing the thickness of fibreglass laminate sections, further addressing the problems associated with resin wetting of thick lay-up sections. Wind turbines may also benefit from the general trend of increasing use and decreasing cost of carbon fibre materials.

3.4 GENERATOR In electricity generation, an electric generator is a device that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy. A generator forces electric charge (usually carried by electrons) to flow through an external electrical circuit. It is analogous to a water pump, which causes water to flow (but does not create water). The source of mechanical energy may be a reciprocating or turbine steam engine, water falling through a turbine or waterwheel, an internal combustion engine, a wind turbine, a hand crank, compressed air or any other source of mechanical energy. The reverse conversion of electrical energy into mechanical energy is done by an electric motor, and motors and generators have many similarities. In fact many motors can be mechanically driven to generate electricity, and very frequently make acceptable generators. For large, commercial size horizontal-axis wind turbines, the generator is mounted in a nacelle at the top of a tower, behind the hub of the turbine rotor. Typically wind turbines generate electricity through asynchronous machines that are directly connected with the electricity grid. Usually the rotational speed of the wind turbine is slower than the equivalent rotation speed of the electrical network - typical rotation speeds for a wind generators are 5-20 rpm while a directly connected machine will have an electrical speed between 750-3600 rpm. Therefore, a gearbox is inserted between the rotor hub and the generator. This also reduces the generator cost and weight. Older style wind generators rotate at a constant speed, to match power line frequency, which allowed the use of less costly induction generators. Newer wind turbines often turn

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at whatever speed generates electricity most efficiently. This can be solved using multiple technologies such as doubly fed induction generators or full-effect converters where the variable frequency current produced is converted to DC and then back to AC, matching the line frequency and voltage. Although such alternatives require costly equipment and cause power loss, the turbine can capture a significantly larger fraction of the wind energy. In some cases, especially when turbines are sited offshore, the DC energy will be transmitted from the turbine to a central (onshore) inverter for connection to the grid.

3.4.1 GENERATOR CHARACTERISTICS The rotor will accelerate until the load (generator) absorbs all the power it can produce. If the generator and the rotor are well matched, this will occur at the design tip speed ratio, and the maximum power will be extracted from the wind. Generators also have their preferred speeds of operation. As we shall see later, the voltage produced by a generator varies with the speed of rotation. It will need to be run fast. If it is connected to a battery, then no power will come out of the generator until its output voltage exceeds the battery voltage. The shaft speed (rpm) above which the generator delivers power is known as the cut-in speed. The speed required for full power output is known as the rated speed. These speeds need to correspond to the speeds at which the rotor 'likes' to run, in the corresponding wind speeds.

3.5 TOWER 3.5.1 TOWER HEIGHT Wind velocities increase at higher altitudes due to surface aerodynamic drag (by land or water surfaces) and the viscosity of the air. The variation in velocity with altitude, called wind shear, is most dramatic near the surface. Typically, in daytime the variation follows the wind profile power law, which predicts that wind speed rises proportionally to the seventh root of altitude. Doubling the altitude of a turbine, then, increases the expected wind speeds by 10% and the expected power by 34%. xxii

To avoid buckling, doubling the tower height generally requires doubling the diameter of the tower as well, increasing the amount of material by a factor of at least four. At night time, or when the atmosphere becomes stable, wind speed close to the ground usually subsides whereas at turbine hub altitude it does not decrease that much or may even increase. As a result the wind speed is higher and a turbine will produce more power than expected from the 1/7 power law: doubling the altitude may increase wind speed by 20% to 60%. A stable atmosphere is caused by radiative cooling of the surface and is common in a temperate climate: it usually occurs when there is a (partly) clear sky at night. When the (high altitude) wind is strong (a 10-meter ) wind speed higher than approximately 6 to 7 m/s the stable atmosphere is disrupted because of friction turbulence and the atmosphere will turn neutral. A daytime atmosphere is either neutral (no net radiation; usually with strong winds and/or heavy clouding) or unstable (rising air because of ground heatingby the sun). Here again the 1/7 power law applies or is at least a good approximation of the wind profile. Indiana had been rated as having a wind capacity of 30,000 MW, but by raising the expected turbine height from 50 m to 70 m, the wind capacity estimate was raised to 40,000 MW, and could be double that at 100 m 3.6 WIND RESOURCE A wind turbine transforms the kinetic energy in the wind to mechanical energy in a shaft and finally into electrical energy in a generator. The maximum available energy, Pmax, is thus obtained if theoretically the wind speed could be reduced to zero: P = 1/2M* VO 2 = 1/2 A VO 3 where m is the mass flow, VO is the wind speed, the density of the air and A the area where the wind speed has been reduced. The equation for the maximum available power is very important since it tells us that power increases with the cube of the wind speed and only linearly with density and area. The available wind speed at a given site is therefore often first measured over a period of time before a project is initiated. In practice one cannot reduce the wind speed to zero, so a power coefficient Cp is defined as the ratio between the actual power obtained and the maximum available power as given by the above equation. A theoretical maximum for Cp exists, denoted by the Betz limit, CPmax = 16/27 = 0.593. Modern wind turbines operate close to this limit, with Cp up to 0.5, and are therefore optimized. Statistics have been given on many different turbines sited in Denmark and as rule of thumb they produce approximately 1000kWh/m2/year. However, the production is very site dependent and the rule of thumb can only be used as a crude xxiii

estimation and only for a site in Denmark. Sailors discovered very early on that it is more efficient to use the lift force than simple drag as the main source of propulsion. Lift and drag are the components of the force perpendicular and parallel to the direction of the relative wind respectively. It is easy to show theoretically that it is much more efficient to use lift rather than drag when extracting power from the wind. All modern wind turbines therefore consist of a number of rotating blades looking like propeller blades. If the blades are connected to a vertical shaft, the turbine is called a vertical-axis machine, VAWT, and if the shaft is horizontal, the turbine is called a horizontal-axis wind turbine, HAWT. The tower height is important since wind speed increases with height above the ground and the rotor diameter is important since this gives the area A in the formula for the available power. The ratio between the rotor diameter D and the hub height H is often approximately one. The rated power is the maximum power allowed for the installed generator and the control system must ensure that this power is not exceeded in high winds. The number of blades is usually two or three. Two-bladed wind turbines are cheaper since they have one blade fewer, but they rotate faster and appear more flickering to the eyes, whereas threebladed wind turbines seem calmer and therefore less disturbing in a landscape. The aerodynamic efficiency is lower on a two bladed than on a three-bladed wind turbine. A two-bladed wind turbine is often, but not always, a downwind machine; in other words the rotor is downwind of the tower. Furthermore, the connection to the shaft is flexible, the rotor being mounted on the shaft through a hinge. This is called a teeter mechanism and the effect is that no bending moments are transferred from the rotor to the mechanical shaft. Such a construction is more flexible than the stiff three-bladed rotor and some components can be built lighter and smaller, which thus reduces the price of the wind turbine. The stability of the more flexible rotor must, however, be ensured. Downwind turbines are noisier than upstream turbines, since the once-per-revolution tower passage of each blade is heard as a low frequency noise. The rotational speed of a wind turbine rotor is approximately 20 to 50 rpm and the rotational speed of most generator shafts is approximately 1000 to 3000 rpm. Therefore a gearbox must be placed between the lowspeed rotor shaft and the speed generator shaft.

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CHAPTER 4 FUTURE SCOPE OF WIND ENERGY In the near future, wind energy will be the most cost effective source of electrical power. In fact, a good case can be made for saying that it already has achieved this status. The actual life cycle cost of fossil fuels (from mining and extraction to transport to use technology to environmental impact to political costs and impacts, etc.) is not really known, but it is certainly far more than the current wholesale rates. The eventual depletion of these energy sources will entail rapid escalations in price which -- averaged over the brief period of their use -- will result in postponed actual costs that would be unacceptable by present standards. And this doesn't even consider the environmental and political costs of fossil fuels use that are silently and not-so-silently mounting every day. The major technology developments enabling wind power commercialization have already been made. There will be infinite refinements and improvements, of course. One can guess (based on experience with other technologies) that the eventual push to full commercialization and deployment of the technology will happen in a manner that no one can imagine today. There will be a "weather change" in the marketplace, or a "killer application" somewhere that will put several key companies or financial organizations in a position to profit. They will take advantage of public interest, the political and economic climate, and emotional or marketing factors to position wind energy technology for its next round of development.

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