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Thanks for your interest in
SuperTurbine(R), and in how I transitioned from laddermill to
SuperTurbine(R), and the inventive steps involved.
First it is an
oversimplification to say I went from laddermill to ST just because
laddermill was a drag machine and ST was a lift-based machine. It
was a little more complicated than that. Of course it seemed
better to have propellers, that could stand their ground and not move
downwind, rather than sails moving downwind, that would therefore have
a low relative windspeed and contribute little power. Essentially
it was a matter of taking what would work somewhat like a Savonius
(inefficient), and instead use propellers (more efficient). But
there was more to it than that: At the same time I made the leap
from mom;'s clothesline complete with the laundry drying as it goes by,
to real propellers, I started imagining a laddermill going fast enough
to use lift and airfoils, and I could see that it might fly on its own
with no top wheel needed, and that would turn what was somewhat like a
looping Savonius machine, into a looping Darrieus machine, but the
problem I had was it seemed too complicated and too dangerous. I
mean, wind energy blades want to travel at 120 MPH, and so you have
these cables whipping around at 120 mph. The blades would seem to
possibly need constant adjustment throughout the cycle. The
propellers, on the other hand, just sort of stay there, just hang in
one place. Sure the tips are going 120 MPH, but the rotor itself
could just hang there in the air, doing its thing, seemingly
motionless! That seemed way easier for a dummy like me to even
contemplate, than loops of airfoils constantly changing pitch, going by
faster than I had ever gone in a car, (and make sure you don't get in
the way or get caught in it!). My thought was that a lift-based
high-speed laddermill could work, but that it would take SO MUCH
expertise to get it to really run right that it was just over my
head. The propellers I could grasp. The looping airfoil
thing seemed like it could only be done by some extreme aerospace
experts. That was why, when I saw U.Delfts and Ockels promoting
my teenage idea as "laddermill" I was real excited. First, I
thought it was a clever name, since it looked like a rope ladder.
This team, it seemed, would have the expertise to actually make it
work! What blew me away with disappointment was that they gave up
without building one and just started flying kites and doing the
kite-reeling thing. I was aghast. I reeled. (get it?
reeled?) All that hype, and all those patents, and they're not
even going to build one? And now they're flying kites and reeling
(like everybody else) , and still calling THAT a laddermil? I was
like "WHAT???"
To this day, I think laddermill is a great idea, and
the more I've thought about it over the years, the fewer reasons I can
think of that it might not be able to work really well. But if
nobody is going to build one, how would anyone ever know?
Same
with the Fry idea of multiple vertical-axis turbines all hanging from
whatever, all driving an elongate driveshaft - a great idea - why has
nobody built one? Look at the header for this group right now: a
tethered biplane or boxkite with a nice-looking prop in the center - so
whats the problem? Why isn't anyone trying one of those???
This is why I say, just go through the published literature: there are
many many many GREAT ideas for AWE. It's just that nobody is
DOING any of them. There are not just 10 easy ways to do AWE in
MY head - there are 10 easy ways in LOTS of peoples' heads, and
hundreds, if not thousands, of workable AWE ideas published in the
archives, just nobody bothers to build or try any of it. Look at
SkyWIndPower - nothing wrong with their concept whatsoever. A
completely possible, highly-robust concept that could almost not fail
to work, a million scientists all doing a simultaneous hang-wringing
session over their warming planet concensus, and somehow, nobody wants
to bother developing SkyWindPower. Gosh when I saw the first
SkyWIndPower press-releases, I figured as soon as they dropped the
single-bladed rotor aspect, and went to regular rotors, they'd redefine
wind energy! "It's OVER!" I thought "SkyWIndPower has
conquered the world!" But they just never did much of
anything. They are going so slow it's like molasses in January
after global warming when winters got way colder, like now.
Anyway I digress. OK Inventive steps: ST patents cover a
LOT of inventive steps, resulting in lots of claims. For example,
part of 6616402 covers blades filled with helium. Period.
They don't have to be SuperTurbine blades, just wind turbine
blades. Or hydrogen. Or any buoyant gas, actually.
The patents cover a lot more than AWE, they conver ground-based and
tower-based turbines, underwater, driving boats, used to propel
airborne vehicles and provide lift, and combinations of Darrieus and
regular propellers in one turbine. But if i had to sum the aspect
you guys seem to be asking about, it's that there were plenty of
multi-rotor vertical-axis machines in the literature, suspended,
airborne, etc., and plenty of multi-rotor regular wind turbines, aimed
coaxially with the wind, including jet engines etc. But
what was new was running a driveshaft with a series of regular
propellers at an angle, with sufficient spacing to get fresh wind in
between the rotors, so the rotors could each get their own supply of
air and be effective, rather than trying to re-extract energy from
"used air" that had already gone through a previous propeller.
Then you can get on to flying the rotors like gyrocopters, etc.
It all gets pretty complicated. Lots of patents, lots of claims,
lots of countries, lots of expense, lots of you should be lucky it's
not you or you'd be broke. Having patents is a lot of work and a
lot of expense, and there are plenty of good inventors and business
people who make a great success without patents. Patents take a
lot of time and energy that could be used developing products, and once
you have them it turns into an ongoing project. Your patent
attorney can tell you more, but it gets to be one of those "be careful
what you wish for" type of situations since maintenence fees, and
ongoing continuation patents become projects unto themselves. As
most people have heard, most patents expire without having made any
money for anyone but the patent office and the patent attorneys. |
US4084102 Filed in 1976. 
