DaveS,

 

 

DaveS,

 

We probably agree that Makani (I would add other groundgen crosswind AWES) has limits preventing it to reach the efficiency of conventional wind turbines _ above all the last generation of offshore floating tilted turbines _ in spite of the fact that"Makani is a good AWES for now" ,this expression containing also a real limit (for now only).   

"...(never mind Mothras)."  On several posts I (among other players) tried to find some sets on Mothras' basis,thinking Arches have great potential concerning the maximization of space and the simplicity of management.A great step one was realized;the next step should be making electricity.On Rod's videos,there are some designs about kite's motion (I am not sure if the motion is an adaptation for different wind directions or a mean to produce dynamic power).

 

It is the time to build a complete AWES on Mothras'basis,and for now as beginning.

Could you score such a construction?

 

PierreB

 

                     

DaveS,

 

The main advantages of AWE over conventional wind turbine are both ratio power/weight and harnessing high-altitude winds,disadvantages being less    efficiency by unity of swept area and huge land and space uses.Implementation far offshore where space is unlimited seems advantageous,but the cost of electrical cable is very high.Implementation near the big towns is yet more advantageous but AWE must replace aviation (double economy of oil),that for another context where massive economies of oil is urgent.The success of AWE is linked to a transformation of the economic space.

 

PierreB

http://www.carlgu.hk/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/drop-stitch.jpg 

Rod Read has taken the big step of forming the Kite Power Cooperative, a an AWE R&D business cooperative for us all. What does this mean, and why is it so exciting?

Research by Claudia Sanchez Bajo and Bruno Roelants found that "cooperatives have on average performed better than traditional for-profit corporations." "Cooperatives seem on average to last longer and be more responsive to the needs of customers and the communities in which they operate, because their shared ownership and participative management generally makes labor more flexible while reducing the incentives of upper management to maximize short term performance at the expense of the long term."

"The Rochdale Principles are a set of ideals for the operation of cooperatives. They were first set out by the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers in Rochdale, United Kingdom, in 1844, and have formed the basis for the principles on which co-operatives around the world operate to this day. The implications of the Rochdale Principles are a focus of study in co-operative economics."

"In the Statement on the Co-operative Identity, a co-operative is defined as "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise." Co-operatives "are based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity. In the tradition of co-operative founders, co-operative members believe in the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for others." *

AWEIA is committed to cooperative progress, and will strive to coordinate AWE private ventures with the cooperative opportunities. Util LLC also embraces the AWE Cooperative model, and proposes to pioneer the licensing of CC IP under cooperative priniciples. This means Util will be the first IP player to ever publicly recognize and help compensate AWE CC IP creators. Roddy will be pleased to know that Util (via Ed Sapir) has approved funds for an initial CC IP R&D project with the Kite Power Cooperative, within Util's AWE Microcapital Program (AMP). The details will be announced soon.

Its not too late to join the Kite Power Coop as a founding member, and help organize it. KPC has a great prospect to be the top player in global AWE, based on the superiority of modern cooperative principles.

http://kitepowercoop.org/



* mixed text sourced from Wikipedia

Can an AWE Business Cooperative scale? How would it work?

With almost 90,000 workers and 15 billions in annual revenue, the Mondragon Coop is the 17th largest commercial enterprise in the EU-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

Roddy,

Its very exciting to see your latest Morthra 3D work, with almost daily progress. Your video collaboration style is quite AWESome. Some working notes and suggestions-

The best place to put any WECS (flipwing or turbine) under a kite arch is right at trailing edge of the lifting surface, to create maximal high-pressure low-pressure differential wind-fields. Think of the WECS arrays as working like Flaps on an airplane wing, and also as the power-depower function of a traction kite's "brake-lines". Animate the WECS to fold up like "zero-flaps" to depower the array and also help the arch still fly in lulls. 

Consider creating "conventional" two and three-bladed HAWT rotor 3-D models to use in showing comparative array concepts, since we don't know yet how flipwings v. rotors will test out. Doug's lumber rotors are two-blade, of course.

When you animate the tacking flipwings, have each semi-captive parafoil above sweep a little figure-eight in opposition. A continuous or tarp-kixel fabric arch seems suited to smooth turbine operation at lowest cost. Modelling a ribbon arch, add some extra length the the TE (slightly curved ribbon if laid flat). Its very important to closely model ideal single-tarp kixel geometry, with tuning inputs supported, since the flat tarp is such cheap universal power. You then of course clone them, and trim them by kixel sections, into an optimal Mothra design. 

Please model Mothra1 more or less accurately, as a key Util-supported task, using the photos, videos, and drawings as sources. The black center body is 30 feet long by 8 across, the blue tarps are nominally 5x5 and the clear are 10x10 ft., so they tile evenly. The rear "power" sail and FAA colored drogues and wing tips are important features.

SuperMothra is next, a ~2000m2 contender for World's Largest Kite, to be built this Spring, using Mothra1's pattern language. WOW, Util, USWindlabs, KiteLab Group, and the Kite Power Coop will team for this. It could fly over Lewis, as we are still planning encampments, so let us know.

If arranging rows of arches like shark's gills, as a SuperMothra concept, put a short row of WECS under the TE of each arch course. Fill the sky with that. 

Remember the idea to use irrigation circles from satellite images as a ready surface texture-map for kite farm cells, with a pure-sky cylinder around it all (faded at horizon). The first cut at texture-mapped surroundings had trees around the horizon taller than the arch.

Great work, and thanks a million,
 
daveS

CC BY NC SA


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Great advice thanks.
I'll keep plugging away at the parametric model. Some fairly fundamental changes to it today. I'll do what I can... But to be honest... I'm going a bit square eyed with it. Changing a single line would be a struggle at this time of night.
There are some very helpful and interested people on the grasshopper 3d forum.

Encouraging indeed!
Loads of formalising still to be done.
I can't take all the credit. And I certainly haven't done the most work towards the successful cooperative outcome.
I enjoy what I'm doing.
Can't ask for much more than that.

A powerful new concept of Engineered MegaMaterial emerged on this forum to describe the sorts of 3D airborne latticework of string and membrane that we invented to harvest energy and other applications. This increasingly looks like a game-changing technology on a planetary scale.

We were compelled to avoid utility patents on this spidery IP, due to the slowness, expense, uncertainty, and coercion involved, relying instead on open source CC IP, based on copyright, and moral rights. We came to understand our creative design process as a kind of computer programming, which has established protections under copyright law, but it would not do if we will be alone in seeing that kite rigging is a programmable computation basis.

Fortunately, materials and computer science already strongly supports us in this view-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmable_matter

Another conceptual front for our latticework has come to light; "lattice gases", which is an old extension of cellular automata into aerodynamics; so old we would today name the subject "lattice fluids", as the gas-fluid continuum has become better known. The interesting aspect is that lattice gases are a compact means to compute Navier-Stokes Equations for Low-Re flow fields, and that flow features are modeled as automata-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattice_gas_automaton

We were long aware that our state machines are nicely modeled as programmable cellular automata. Our linked arrays in wind flow are more or less exact real-life instances of the Game of Life. Walking the dog at dusk yesterday, a dimly outlined V-formation of geese flew over, with the same cellular automata dynamics uncannily apparent-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life

What a vast intellectual wonderland the "simple" kite has led us to. Since Chanute, we have vainly thought a complete theory of kiting was at hand, but now we find that goal just seems to trail off into infinity...

Now make it self launching and the lifters be self adjusting for chaotic winds. The drive shaft to the generator as tether makes it lighter and simpler. I've been working on similar concepts and this all seems quite exciting.

Close to topic: 

Close to topic: 

Thanks for the warm welcome Dave. I've exchanged a few emails with Doug a few years back. I am not an engineer but an old skydiver who was on the drop zone when the first kite-like parachute was jumped, the Barrish sailwing. I always enjoyed the subtle turbulence at 500 feet and 2,000 feet and felt there was potential for capturing energy even higher.

25 years ago I had some ideas and in 2006 I put together 2 concepts for capturing high altitude energy and was hired by a company to explore them more fully but by the end of 2007 the economy tanked and the company's cash cow industry collapsed and I went down with it.

The two areas of interest were/are:

1) Ground based generator with governor, tether/drive shaft braided Vectran type rubber band line twisting, self-launching, self adjusting kite and a mini balloon as pilot assist and something like Doug's spinning windmills suspended beneath as the drive shaft driver. The main issues I felt to figure were chaotic wind adjustments and I believe Hurricane Charley solved it for me when the last things standing in Homestead were palm trees. The palm leaves (kites) simply adapt to the wind by inverting and returning. Palms are not rigid trees but made of fibers.

2) The other system is a ground based generator connected to a flywheel that is spun by the repetitive launching and retrieving of a self-launching, weather chaos adapted kite. Think of the lawn mower starter with recoil. My first job was to collapse parachutes on the drop zone so I learned it is a simple matter of making one line shorter to collapse it. Same thing with the kite, retrieve that line first at altitude, then let it out near the ground to equalize the area for re-inflation and relaunch, all automatically. Repeat. Up down, up down. If the winds stop completely the system lays on the ground or floats on the water with the mini balloon always ready to catch the next breeze to begin the self launching sequence of gradually larger kites until the main system is back flying.

Both of these ideas have probably been explored and I'm not sure what I can contribute to the group but as a generalist I've tried to seek out an all fiber, light weight, flexible, self adjusting to weather, simple design, self launching, mass produceable, mass manufactured, container distributed, simple, non-contraption, easily maintained off shore/on shore anchoring and electrical connection system.

Let's make it all happen.

Weimdad

I was presuming you were including marine aquaculture the agricultural arena for applying kite systems. 

Lee Guilfoyle 1965 Lakewood Sport Parachute Center, NJ Parachutes Inc was the first sailwing. Lee is still jumping at Skydive Tampa at 79 years young. http://www.flickr.com/photos/lee_guilfoyle/200939334/ I jumped with Jerry Irwin, Dave DeWolfe and Johnny Crews from Pelican Land and made quite a few jumps at Z-Hills.

I picked Vectran because I don't know any better. Whatever will be used for the future Space Elevator from nano technology developments might be better. Twisting into a "burl" like knot on the drive shaft/tether would just be stored energy until it is used by the generator as long as it would not shred.

Wow!   Thanks for link.   Nice set of Barish free-flight kiting systems used for gliding parachutes in the case then in 1965 with those photos. 

Its been appalling to witness how poorly AWE's venture capitalists have performed basic engineering science, opting instead for fictionalized marketing versions, leading to investment fraud and business failure. Even AWE's academic players mostly neglect broad direct experimentation, and stagnate in overly narrow explorations.

Its really not that hard, guys; modern "controlled" experimental method was well understood and applied even 300yrs ago-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_of_experiments

--------sample from the page-------------------


History- Controlled experimentation on scurvy

In 1747, while serving as surgeon on HMS Salisbury, James Lind carried out a controlled experiment to develop a cure for scurvy.[1]

Lind selected 12 men from the ship, all suffering from scurvy. Lind limited his subjects to men who "were as similar as I could have them", that is he provided strict entry requirements to reduce extraneous variation. He divided them into six pairs, giving each pair different supplements to their basic diet for two weeks. The treatments were all remedies that had been proposed:

    * A quart of cider every day
    * Twenty five gutts (drops) of elixir vitriol (sulphuric acid) three times a day upon an empty stomach,
    * One half-pint of seawater every day
    * A mixture of garlic, mustard, and horseradish in a lump the size of a nutmeg
    * Two spoonfuls of vinegar three times a day
    * Two oranges and one lemon every day.


The men who had been given citrus fruits recovered dramatically within a week. One of them returned to duty after 6 days and the others cared for the rest. The others experienced some improvement, but nothing was comparable to the citrus fruits, which were proved to be substantially superior to the other treatments...


--------------------------------------------
Of all AWE players, the KiteLab Group network has been closest to the ideal of testing everything for essential data. Good Experimental Design does not require major funding, credentials, complex instrumentation, or lots of luck.

Thanks to Dave Lang for encouraging persistent experimental AWES work.  Fort Felker is also of this school- "Test, test. test, test; and test again"







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This is just sample marketing, a limited trial-offer for a custom version FlipWing AWES flying set at 2KiteSam "buddy cost". Save by making your own, or wait for eventual mass-production versions at perhaps $50 USD for the flip wing. Depending on a broad spectrum of wind force, this nine foot wing is a 10-1000W range device, with ~100W estimated rating in moderate breezes-

http://www.energykitesystems.net/KiteLab/Ilwaco/FlipwingGhost.html

A repeat-link to the video of the wing in action-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jiUQ8Kh-4w

Application work-cells are separate products, from stock pumps to custom generators to be announced soon...

KiteLab Ilwaco has long depended on flying nearly identical kites side-by-side to compare performance of design changes. Parallel testing in the exact same wind conditions avoids errors and uncertainty of sequential testing in always changing conditions.

The Twind AWES concept is an example of a matched kite pair that is dynamically connected. Due to multiplied critical failure points, its not seen as an ideal working design, but it has the properties of a simple balance scale, which is a classic scientific instrument.

A fusion of the two ideas leads to a simple but quite sensitive experimental method for optimizing the static and cycling traction of AWES concepts. Two originally identical test kites are cross-linked, with a tiny tuning or detail change made to one. Whether the change is beneficial or harmful to traction work is clearly indicated by the differential tug-of-war of the linked kites (as well as flying angle, and other key observables, like stability).

This is a neat sort of embodied genetic algorithm, where one subtle change at a time is tested for clear adaptive advantage. The good changes are then made to the "control" kite, to re-balance the rig for the next change to test. Take care not optimize into a dead-end "basin attractor".

To futher enhance the test method, trade sides with the elements to cancel even tiny random asymmetries. Its still important to test for long periods in varied conditions, even with an improved experimental design.

I would really like to see what happens when two vertically aligned
horizontal strings have a set of 10 of these flipwing kites between them
...

And what happens when you tie the trailing edges of the flipwings at the
same distance spacing that they are spaced mounted on the two lines.

The flipwing has a fair effect on the ghost lifter kite tether.

Slinging and linking this line of linked flip wings to another load path
below an arch trailing edge load path ... Can we get kixels steering on
the arch to initiate the flip (or vice versa)

you could certainly use the enhanced sinusoidal tug vectoring at the
feet to power the kixel steering

http://www.graphene-flagship.eu/GFfiles/130124_PresseText_A4.pdf 

 

In spite of the progress in number of players AWE does not really take off,and conventional wind turbines raise the same problems of heaviness of installation and dismantling.

For AWE on ground USA,Russia,Canada have great areas but Europe is too much populated.

Offshore and farshore offer possibilities but the huge quantities of copper for the long cables of connection towards cities cancel the advantages of the lightness of the infrastructures of AWE.

Morever the management of both huge and variable power is difficult.

So AWE should progress within a technico-economic environment quite different from that of the conventional wind turbine.

Some ways,comprising crazy ways:loading batteries for electrical cars then transports towards coast by electric boat,towns in the middle of sea,port facilities on the open sea, scientific bases...

PierreB

http://flygenkite.com

http://wheelwind.com

To play toward AWE siting solutions will be the rope-transmission tech

AWES community, 

http://www.gizmag.com/tentsile-stingray-suspended-tent/26086/pictures#1 

The Fraunhofer Society seems uncontested as an acceptable and willing third-party comparative AWES architecture validator. This progress puts us at the starting gate of a large funded test project of multi-year duration. What next? 

A sound draft of a Controlled Experimental Design is needed to help define the scope of validation work. Planning can then be completed, especially budgets and timeline. Test Siting is a big logistical question, with Germany likely favored by Fraunhofer's staffing pattern.

Major due-diligence AWES testing is not a new topic, so the misc. notes below are just ongoing gathering of requirements on an iterative spiral. Please make suggestions ASAP, to add to an initial working prospectus pending to Fraunhofer, for their review and further elaboration.


Notes-

-AWES tested at separate places and times make engineering comparison far less certain than "side-by-side" testing. Not only do wind conditions differ, but small variations in set-up, instrumentation, and test practices create uncertainty. Therefore, for definitive results with limited resources, a single site for extended controlled experimental testing is favored.

-AWES Test Cells (stations on a kite field) should be rotated for equal time in each cell, cancelling small differences created by surrounding conditions. Wind-tunnels also vary, so rotation of AWES at a single tunnel is better than two separate wind-tunnel results.

-Discovery priority is established online with social media as the third-party. AWES testing could even be shared in real-time online, as a revolution in transparent agile-engineering.

-The many brief field tests never have validated essential AWES reliability. Extended endurance testing, with varied hostile conditions, is required. Accelerated testing of components is good, but does not replace extended field testing.


-Only small AWES exist as high TRL production models. These should be tested as products, with consumer input gathered.

-Scale model testing requires special protocols. All applicable scaling laws must be accounted for. Comparative testing of large-scale architectures should be within equivalent model scales.

-Operational testing is a key parameter. Testing should account for excessive O&M needs.

-Economic analysis is a key parameter. Complex models are required to predict true economic performance. Labor cost should be fairly compared with labor-saving automation.

-Videogrammetry is now cheap, with many high-performance options (high-speed, multi-spectral, stabilized platforms, etc.). Video also validates endurance, as a "security camera" auditable trail.


-A balanced stakeholder committee needs to finalize the goals and details of a testing program. Consensus and transparency are core requirements for a successful AWES validation program.

-Non-conflicted investment (open to any validated solution) is needed. This can come from any player not directly associated with a proprietary design interest (gov, NGO, or private institutional investor).

-Contending innovators have a direct expert role in making their concepts work in testing. Weak implementers need help to have their ideas get a fair trial. Fraunhofer will have to balance these sorts of contradictions.

-Numeric simulations are a key activity. Defining the computing environment is an open topic. Building the AWES simulation models and testing parametrically will be a major job comparable to field-testing.

-Analytic tools like AWES critical-path study and a complex scoring matrix have been discussed. Fraunhofer needs to review earlier work, to build on.

-Safety standards and regulatory compliance are key validation parameters. FAA/ICAO FARs and many other standards apply.

-(DOE standard) TRL scores of contending AWES products and concepts is a specific validation output format. 

-Narrative reports cover unquantified special details (like niche advantages). 

-Rankings lists are also desired deliverables (ranking by ROI, capital-cost per installed-Watt, O&M factors, etc.)

Did you ever have a look on how this cost breaks down and which part might not be applicable to a flying wing with no combustion engines,less avionics in a "static" flight mode (fewer take offs and landings?). I assume this would result in significantly lower maintenance labor and parts costs.

/cb

Whats the best stuff to use for flygens? This 2006 article well-painted the promising future for putruded carbon core wound in aluminium-

http://www.compositesworld.com/articles/composites-connect-with-the-world-of-cabling

The first-featured developer, CTC, "tanked heavily on bankruptcy news" a few years ago, but 3M seems on track to profitably deploy its "Aluminum Conductor Composite Reinforced (ACCR) cable" on a large scale.

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/EMD_ACCR/ACCR_Home/TechnicalInfo/Tests/

How best to do a two-wire conductor by this approach? The carbon core is semi-conductive and electrically isolated by s-glass from the alu conducting jacket, which could be a double-helix (two-wire) ribbon.