Attachments :

If Jeffrey Greenblatt from Google had followed through and gotten into development with Superturbine(R), they'd be a LOT further than this by now. They'd be MAKING a megawatt instead of talking about it at this point. Oh well, you can lead a horse to water...
Doug Selsam
http://www.USWINDLABS.com

Why are you such a hater Dave?

You're not making any friends and I'm sure no one will collaborate with you with an attitude like that.

We're ALL underdogs in this quest (even Makani and Joby) and as soon as one of us is commercially successful, the market will open for all types and varieties of AWE. Makani's new web site more clearly describes Air-Gen AWE than anything I've previously seen. This can only help us all in the long run.

Now get back to work.

- Dimitri

Dimitri,   What i really hate about Makani is the fantastic waste of resources. There is nothing they have done so far for 15 million that any of a dozen universities couldn't have done for about a hundred thousand dollars. Don't be so sure that anyone who deplores Google/Makani's weak performance is doomed to isolation. In KiteLab's case its circle of collaboration is far larger than Makani's small team & likely exceeds your own mysterious circle.   I am sorry you & most of the list is still in the dark about the hidden Makani background story. I was tasked by Dave Culp of KiteShip back in 2007 to assess the company & promptly traced its now defunct parent, Squid Labs, to contract work on Atair's guided flocking parafoil bombs ("swarms of smart bombs" is the marketing claim). This raised early working capital for marketing the group to shine as the inventor darlings of the Bay Area (they claimed to give up military work, but there they were at ARPA-E).   Many high-profile Squid technical projects & spin-off companies fizzled miserably. There were to be no instant super-cheap eyeglasses for the world's poor: Optical quality is apparently too hard with a balloon for a mold. The Potentco generators languished in preproduction, given dozens of cheap hand generators already on the market. "Smart rope" never caught on. None of many lesser ventures, like novelty lights for bikes, was a big success. The whole Make phenom was but a rip-off of the true DIY scene. Makani's CEO/CTO did develop a moderately successful water-ski kite as perhaps the major accomplishment of the Squid circle. This is the basis for the team that Google exclusively funded as a "stealth company", Makani Power.   My report to David Culp was that the Squids were greatly oversold, this was no band of genius designers like their press claimed. During as series of visits inside Makani i directly observed deep weaknesses, particularly in its missing aerospace background, but also in its toxic industrial psychology. I have never yet publicly told this interesting story, as Dave Culp warned the opinions were "dangerous" not just to Makani, but to the entire AWE field, which was far weaker at the time.   Someday the whole curious story will come out. I certainly don't hate anyone involved. Don is a fine hard-working kite person i met at breakfast with Dean Jordan. Corwin is really working hard; learning fast; & may prevail. Pete is one of AWE's top thinkers. Saul is harder to like because his MacArthur success seems founded on misleading claims like the revolutionary eyeglasses & a Media Arts PhD thesis video where seeming hierarchical assembly of the initials MIT is fudged with editing, but i would still enjoy a friendly debate with him anytime on any subject.   You might enjoy meeting & working for these folks. The company is showing a welcome change in culture. Google might yet broaden its AWE play. I'll happily work with them if the opprtunity arises,   daveS   PS Stay tuned for an in-depth review of Makani's new mega-disclosure.

Dave, 
I tend to agree with your economic assesment. Surely a regular deferred cost is preferable to a large up front cost, especially with the promise of performance and longevity upgrades within the life of the system (i.e. you're right about the obsolescece). But as in most flight applications there are trade offs all the way. Have to say i'm not sure 2-4 year flight time is not realistic, Doug is right to say wear can be dramatic with heavy use -so maybe 3-6 months at best with current kites, but then they are not designed for continuous use.

Here is the view of a non-aeronautic engineer on the matter- a non-exhaustive list...

Soft                                                           Hard
Harder to get high L/d                                Easier to get high L/d
Lighter                                                       Heavier - inertial loss?
Less prone to weight penalties on scaleup   More prone to weight penalties on scaleup
Cheap                                                        Expensive
Under-actuated                                          Excellent control authority
Difficult and comp expensive to model        Can be modeled through conventional techniques in real time
Pack down small                                        Don't pack down
Could deform to match conditions              Must operate in all conditions
Can do ground gen                                    Must run power down cable

However if you need to get something onto the market that you know will work, then going down the hard wing route starts to look attractive as the wing performance and control is emanently achievable. If you have 99.9% success in fabric wing control & integrity, you still might have a catastrophic failure every 3 years! Then again if you took a long view you could do a decade of soft wing testing on a marine application to debug..... I'm not sure there is a 'right' and 'wrong' way to go about it - if we are shooting for perfection then we in for some disappointment!

If you're wondering why I'm posting for once, it's because I still have 30000 more words of thesis to write and I'm in procrastination mode!

Al

Allister,   Nice list of sort v. hard wing pros & cons. Procrastination is contagious-   The entire continuum of soft to rigid kite wing has applications & the trade-offs are routine. An optimal wing is always some blend of soft & rigid. Extreme soft kite & hard wing are rare marginal solutions compared to the many working hybrids including all flavors of inflatable & ram airbeam, tensarity, stick & fabric, fabric over framework, battened membranes. etc.. A useful AWECS hybrid is a soft slow lifter holding semi-captive aloft a fast rigid wing or turbine as the power harvesting element. A quiver of swappable wings is a a flexible hybrid.   Besides UV, flapping/flogging/whipping is what mainly wastes fabric, as Dave Culp noted to us. Otherwise fabric is pretty damn stable, the static flight loads are modest. Historic organic sails did last 2-4 of years or so with mending, more if well treated or less in tropics, stored wet. Modern fabric covered aircraft live outdoors for a few years flyable. A composite skin loaded airframe living outdoors eventually becomes dangerous even as a fabric change rejuvenates an old bird. A maintenance hit of high speed composite wings is to keep them very clean, even spattered insects & dust considerably degrade performance.   I am testing how long kites last in high use & they just don't want to wear out if kept patched. Even the cheapest toy kites are lasting indefinitely, some rescued after grave exposure. One does spare an old kite from gale. Vinyl based membrane (PVC) has high UV residence but is not eco friendly. Polyester takes UV better than nylon. Organic fibers like hemp, cotton, & linen can serve, not at such high duty or performance as synthetics, but superbly compostable. Wayne German's hypersonic tethered foils might be a giant ceramic shard or tungsten razor made by Joby ;^)   A factor to add to the soft/hard comparison list is realtime control demand. A bigger slower (softer, lighter wingloading) wing allows a lot more time for computation & response than a fast wing. This is a design-driving limitation for a while, forcing Makani, for example, to use FPGAs.   Good luck with your kite thesis. Take all the time you need, We'll take any heat from Inman,   daveS

Hello,

thank you for this comparism.
I just want to add the following points:

a) it is possible to have a plane with hard wings and generate power on the ground,
   like ampyxpower is doining it ( http://www.ampyxpower.com )
b) it is possible to have a kiteplane (an inflatable plane made of soft material), that
   combines of the advantages of a soft system with those of  an airoplane
   (easier to control and simulate, higher lift to drag ratio)
   http://www.lr.tudelft.nl/live/pagina.jsp?id=eda4fd3a-79dd-4419-aa98-02787b09fa15&lang=en

I just started to work at TU Delft, helping to implement the kiteplane approach.

Regards:

Uwe Fechner

Allister Furey schrieb:

Click image  for full instruction. 

 

Serious use of real estate...

Airborne wind turbine
electricity generating system

 Moshe Meller

Patent number: 7582981
Filing date: Jun 23, 2008
Issue date: Sep 1, 2009

 

One fabric to consider is Teflon coated fiberglass. This is the material that is used in fabric architectual projects.  The roof of the Canada Place pier in Vancouver has been up for 20 years and may last 20 more.  It is 100% UV resistant, very strong, the glass makes it a bit heavy in light wieghts.  I have tested samples for kite use.  The main drawback is it can't be creased. It can cyclically bend forever up to a point and then the glass fibers break.   Seams can be welded with a 700 degree iron and are as strong or stronger then the base fabric.  Spectra and Kevlar fibers have been tried but don't work so well because of the high temp manufacturing.  There may be some future potential with this fabric. With careful design a fabric kite could last theoretically forever.  
Grant Calverley
360-378-6186

A mixt between rigid and soft wing

Lightweight Wings For A High-flying Kite

PierreB

Woven fiberglass fabric imbedded with teflon is well proven.
 
There are advances being made with silicon materials . . . perhaps we may only be able to speculate as to the long-term performance of woven fiberglass fabirc imbedded with silicon . . . both materials are UV-resistant with wide temperature tolerance range. Its something someone can make at home . . . in small pieces.
 
 
Harry 

Very nice. I keep remembering how popular single-surface foils are on sailboats, and how expensive the wing-masts seem in comparison.  Given that we are harvesting a free resource, except for space taxes, we probably want to concentrate on low cost per unit area more than high efficiency per unit area. 

Bob Stuart

Speaking of kiteplanes, the pendulum behavior given by empennage mass is a nice opportunity. Kiteplanes naturally fly figure-of-eights as Passive Dutch-Roll, with advantages over the circular loop,

Real Estate?

Sounds interesting but imagine if the fabric roof you mention were in 100mph+ winds all day and all night, every day. In both fields, aviation and wind energy, early attempts used fabrics, and then later working models, optimized for the higher speeds and increased longevity requirements that developed, gravitated to hard surfaces for the skins. By this point any wind turbine "designer" still talking about using cloth sails is considered an uneducated newbie at best and a crackpot that we are tired of hearing from at worst.
Doug Selsam
http://www.USWINDLABS.com

Doug,   AWE designers who use kites will long continue to study membranes due to the severe weight constraints on flight. Designers dependent on towers to support their turbines are in a different world than us. The burden on you is to show your more solid structures can reach upper wind, even at modest scales. Reaching even just 500ft with your concept would be a convincing demo.   Bob is right, forget raw foil performance, look at weight & low cost v. power out. Makani barely did 10kw with its hard wings, at modest height. Skysails & KiteShip's fabric wings have proven mw scale power in the real world. Osborne's monstrous parafoil was capable of around 10mw, as is the stock Gigafly. KiteGen did 40kw with just a cheap stock sport parafoil.   Beat any of these examples to convince doubters,   daveS

The birth of the double-kite?

Page from book The Kite Book

Notice that the upper kite's tail is
actually a SuperTurbine (R) with many
turbines rotating a shaft of a generator
at the tail end of the spine spar.

Notice that the lower kite is a kid.
Notice that the reel with tangle string
is morphing to be a single blade turbine
kite motor from DS. Generating electricity
may be occurring at both ends of the tether
while the kid directs his aerodynamic
surfaces to control the amount of anit-lift
and drag wanted to help the total system
dynamically move over the land.

See the full book to see the various
places the system finds itself.

The book is free online in color.
http://tinyurl.com/TheKiteBook
Page count: 39

Fibers such as glass-fiber and kevlar have very high tensile strength . . . woven fabrics made of wear-resistant, lightweight, high-strength material should provide many years of reliable service as boat sails and kite material. There apparantly has been some advancement in the development of carbon-fiber nanofabric.
 
 
Superior materials will appear over time for the benefit of kites that will stay aloft for years at a time.
 

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1851 edition digitized by Google  (click title start string)

A treatise on the æropleustic art , or navigation in the air by means of kites, or buoyant sails

 

Page count: 60.

Dare to extrapolate to the full potentials of traction: over-ground, over-water, in double-kite free-flight, space-atmosphere, space-space... And add energy miniing operations in the systems. And starkly move to have international agreement to keep AWECS  out of military operations. 

"A non-woven, flexible, engineered laminate " for composite parafoils.

How deep will laminates travel into AWECS?

A childhood hero of mine, Paul Elvstrom, developed modern membrane laminate wing material. Membrane carbon-fiber laminates are wonderful, even resisting flogging if the sandwiched carbon fibers are not prepreged. Later Cuben Fiber membrane laminates have been the ultimate kite material for some years, based on UHMWPE prepreg.   Cuben Fiber - Reinforced fabric manufacturer for sailcloth ...   Elvström Sails Website Atair only deserves credit if they are moving away from parafoil bombs, they scrubbed the website of the old boasts.

	URGENT ACTION NEEDED NOW! MEDIA REPORTS RIGHT NOW INDICATE THAT THE US SENATE INTENDS TO TAKE UP A SLIMMED DOWN ENERGY BILL THAT WILL NOT INCLUDE A RENEWABLE ELECTRICITY STANDARD. Instead, it has provisions dealing with the oil spill, energy efficiency upgrades, natural gas-powered trucking fleets, and land and water conservation. We need YOU to take action immediately.  We need to have every wind industry employee and ally, as well as their friends and family, call their Senators and tell them to urge Senator Reid to include a renewable electricity standard in the bill. This may be our last (or best) hope of getting the necessary legislation needed to save tens of thousands of American jobs in our countries fastest growing industry.  Please click here and tell your Senators you want an RES in the Spill Bill.
______________________________ AMERICAN WIND ENERGY ASSOCIATION 1501 M Street NW, 12th Floor Washington, DC 20005 Phone: (202) 383-2500 Fax: (202) 383-2505 Email: windmail@awea.org Web: www.awea.org Note: this email message is distributed by the American Wind Energy Association. If you have received this message in error, or if you do not wish to receive future mailings from this organization, please use the link provided below to unsubscribe.

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Include in the mix:

 

 http://www.aeroix.de/en/products/   THREE SPECIAL PRODUCTS.

Maybe a path for AWE newstarts
http://www.hdtglobal.com/diversity-form

Thanks Dave,
 
 
I should comment re this at EnergyPulse
 
Harry
 

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To: airbornewindenergy@yahoogroups.com
From: santos137@yahoo.com
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2010 10:38:14 -0700
Subject: [AWECS] Makani Power Disclosure Reviewed

 

Interesting that Superturbine(R), while easily providing the only working, flying, power-producing demo of airborne wind energy at the first world conference in Chico, CA, is also a great answer for a new groundhugger technology that can be lower, not higher, than traditional tower-mounted single-rotor designs. Our latest prototype, called a WindFence(TM) places 15 rotors (or any number) on a long driveshaft supported by A-Frames. It looks like a swingset with propellers along the top bar. Instead of wasting a couple tons of steel to elevate a single rotor up where it bothers neighbors by impeding their desert views of the mountains and powerlines, we use a fraction of that amount of steel to lift a driveshaft about 20 or 30 feet high. While the wind is not as strong at this height, the multiplicity of rotors will nonetheless make more power than a single rotor placed higher. The economic, zoning, and local code result is a wind energy installation below 35 feet height, far easier to permit even in residential areas, that makes more power for less money.

Having said that, imagine a tether that somehow could generate power in its own. A tether that could produce steady power, in the form of constant rotation, able to spin a generator, without any looping cycles, without any control software, spinning winches, no capacitors to try and smooth out a pulsating power cycle. Imagine a tether that was PROVEN to produce LARGE amounts of USABLE power NOW, irresective of exactly how it is elevated. That tether is called a Superturbine(R). Anyone considering themselves serious about the pursuit of high altitude wind energy ignores what has been worked out in the form of Superturbine(R) at their own peril. All roads lead to Superturbine(R). Let's get it on!
:)
Doug Selsam
http://www.USWINDLOABS.com

From time to time, an interesting wind power project orginates from Academia. Severalyears ago, Engineering Prof Brad Blackford from the Technical University of Nova Scotia (Eastern Canada) re-powered a small boat with a windmill. He entered it into a trans-harbor sailboat race . . . contestants had to sail into the wind across the Harbor at Halifax-Dartmouth during an annual festival.
 
 
Blackford's boat was powered by a 2-blade windmill set at an angle to the sea and drove directly into a propeller. While the little sailboats tacked the wind, Blackford sailed directly into the wind . . . and into 1st place.
 
 
Blackford's project indicates that longitudinal-horizontal axis wind turbines are able to operate "off-angle" and still produce power. The non-powered rotor blades of gyro-copters that remain aloft while propelled by a push-prop also indicate the ability of such turbines to operate "off-angle". Doug Selsam has incorporated these precedents into his superturbine concept.
 
 
There may be merit in carrying this concept aloft and suspended by balloon-aircraft. It may be able to generate more power using airborne generators than the prototype concepts that have so far been tested. Transmitting power mechanically from an airborne drive-shaft to ground level may not be practical.
 
 
Installing a large-scale version of the superturbine in a windy valley and suspending it by cables would allow multiple turbines to drive into a small number of generators. VOITH builds massive universal joints cable of transmitting mega-watt and perhaps even giga-watt power levels from a suspended driveshaft to ground-level generators.
 
 
The dismal test results thus far involving rotors driving airborne generators suggest that much more work needs to be done on the concept. Despite the small scale of prototype kite-driven ground-level generators, they have delivered superior test results and at lower cost. AS A RESULT, there will likely be a market for both kite-powered ground-level generators (especially at coast locations and offshore islands) as well as superturbines installed in windy valleys.
 
 
While there have been positive results involving kites pulling boats, the concept may be combined with cable guided ferry boats that sail back-and-forth between pairs of off-shore islands. The kite-driven ferry boats may be connected to the islands by cable-winch systems that drive island-based electrical generators . . . . submarine cables may carry electric power to the mainland shore.
 
 
Harry
 
 
 

 

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On Human-Powered boats, we discovered that a propeller has such a strong tendency to align its axis with the flow that it can easily force a curve in its driveshaft. Where it is held misaligned, as in a traditional inboard boat, the boat goes faster than the pitch would normally allow. So there's a lot of inefficiency in off-axis turbines, but the solution can be a lot easier than the varying pitch of a helicopter rotor.

Best,
Bob Stuart

dave santos wrote:
...
This shouldn't be a problem with grid-connected installations as presumably
there would be many such units all feeding the grid. Statistically the phases
will be randomly distributed so the total power generated should be relatively
steady.

Theo Schmidt

Theo,   True, the more looping flygen units there are, the less the chance that a harmful preponderance will randomly synch, but that chance is always greater than zero, & may happen eventually. Even with a wide-area grid, with wildly fluctuating local generators one must specify all local grid features, like conductors, circuit-breakers, capacitors, etc., for the local worst case, a capital-cost hit.   A weird possibility is that looping AWE units may tend to synch in the absence of close control. Collective brown-out/surge synch can emerge if units even weakly cross-retard/cross-accelerate each other. Presuming randomness might be a mistake.   Surfacegens with flywheel regulation ease these concerns.   daveS

15 M$ of course

PierreB

An array of kites need to be synchronized to make the best use of local space, but they also need to have a phase variation to give a steadier output. Taking both needs together, we can probably have patterns sweeping through the array, like a line of dancers doing a sequence. Artistically done, this could lead to greater public acceptance.

Bob Stuart

Attachments :

Pierre,   Not all AWECS concepts are equally difficult or high-risk like Makani's. Pocock, the school teacher, could have beaten Google's team with his 150 year old kite methods by just giving him an old 50kw generator to turn (Just removing the tail from the "draught kite" would have made his tandem kite system a pumping mill).   High-tech automation is an overrated fetish when simple methods serve. It may be that piloted/supervised AWECS are truly the smartest early solution given the massive immediate need for jobs, not just energy. KiteLab has shown how easily classic kites are able to fly themselves while making power.   Its not that Makani's engineers are stupid, its just that the inventive grace of, say, the Wright brothers, transcends ordinary competence. Where in any of Makani's output is there genius? What exactly have they added to science to empower us all?   Congratulations should be reserved for pioneering systems that-   -Produce large amounts of power -Demonstrate an end-to-end solution (including take-off & landing) -Are safe & reliable -Are low complexity & cheap -Add to science & create fertile new understanding   Makani, in my opinion, has failed to show any of the above, with plenty of capital; but several AWE researchers have, despite low budgets.   If the Google founders had not exclusively favored a socially connected clique which wasted most of the money, but instead taken the 15 million dollars & created ~30,000 500$ stipends for all the world's hungry aerospace students to study AWE, great genius would have emerged. They could still fund transparent cooperative global research to quickly settle whether the "stealth company" model was best or badly mistaken. History will sort this out, in any event,   daveS

The culture to absorb here is not the aviator glasses and radio jargon - the EAA is a wonderful phenomenon, routinely producing home-builts that are far better than their factory counterparts, and using garage-scale technology. They have a nice library on various construction techniques, and associated instructors quickly get to the engineering short-cuts commonly used for design. They also generate great networks of volunteers to get their projects done. The world-circling Voyager flight shows what they can do, just for the glory of pushing the envelope.

Bob Stuart

George Pocock developed & performed feats of kite power 150 years ago that are still hardly surpassed, in his spare time, on a schoolmaster's salary.   He began with the toy paper-&-stick kite. A series of crude rapid experiments led him to a tandem kite arrangement of a "Pilot Kite" & "Draught Kite", separating the two functions to better implement them. The pilot-kite served to stabilize the powered-up draught-kite, easing the manual piloting requirement. Pocock so presumes the necessity of kite tails that he does not once mention them.   He applied animal harnessing methods to develop multi-line control of the draught-kite. The specific control bridle he came up with is pure genius. No more elegant a way to mix kite power-control with steering is known to this day. One pilots his kite just like a horse by two "brace-lines", with no added pulleys, control bars, or other complications. KiteLab has recreated & adopted this solution for its low-complexity AWECS.   Pocock's tactical mastery of kite travel was wonderful. Any kite navigator can learn valuable lessons from his accounts.   Several of us, notably Gaylord Olsen, KiteShip, & KiteLab Group, rediscovered many of Pocock's key methods. To finally have Pocock's Treatise generally available is a fantastic help. Thanks again to Joe for finding it, which has hidden from us by quirks in "search"-

DaveS,

Your idea is relevant, as well as your comment in general:"It may be that piloted/supervised AWECS are truly the smartest early solution given the massive immediate need for jobs, not just energy.".

Two ways are possible:centralized production with GW scale AWECS for a big amount of money before finalization (by far more than 15 M$);and low tech and cost decentralized productions.Philosophy and technical means are different.A journalist asked Tupolev what is his dream; he answered " to make a plane to walk me in the countryside".

So aviation took in first the way of heavy technology (towards jets),in second light technology (paragliding).But now light structures are favorite (architecture,Tensairity for example).And as you say AWECS can not take the way of heavy technology after the first light technologies with initiale kites.

Makani makes a professional presentation.But main problems stay for all.Nethertheless much methods are been described,among which probably winning methods.The solutions can be finding what are good ways for our time in the world.So it would be interesting you and others develop an ideology for AWECS. 

PierreB 

• http://tinyurl.com/CardanShafts        Image set
• Company:       http://www.voith.com/index_e.php
• Valentine Island Shuttle transporting goods and people while making electricity all the while... nice.

 

KSU

Kite Steering Unit 

new graphic

http://www.kitves.com/technology.aspx

The KitVes Consortium:

• Sequoia automation
• Centro Studi Industriali
• Modelway
• Sheffield University
• Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
• Fatronik
• Haute Ecole ARC
• University of Wuppertal
• SVMtec
• TEKS

Makani Power topic of technology series July 27

On Tuesday, July 27, the Gorge Technology Alliance will host a presentation on the latest developments in harnessing wind power by Corwin Hardham, PhD and CEO of Makani Power.
     The event begins at 7 p.m. at Erin Glenn Winery in The Mint, 710 E. Second St. in The Dalles). The Gorge Tech Alliance received a Google grant to support its Leading Edge of Technology speakers series, making this event free for everyone to attend.
     Clean, abundant energy is the key to maintaining our quality of life while preserving our natural environment. This requires enormous amounts of energy from renewable resources which is proving to be one of the most fascinating engineering challenges of our time.
     Makani Power is developing a game-changing solution which can deliver energy at a fraction of the cost of established renewable energy technologies. Once matured, the scalability and flexibility of this technology will enable it to be deployed more rapidly and in a greater number of sites than conventional wind or solar energy.
     Hardham will review the background that led Makani to focus on airborne wind energy and provide a detailed presentation of the Makani technology. For additional information visit www.makanipower.com.
     The Gorge Technology Alliance seeks to promote the technology business sector of the Gorge by helping start, grow, expand, and sustain high-tech companies. It meets regularly and provides networking opportunities with learning events about technology business resources in the area.