Schools of fish, that is. A major problem with the development of "wind farms" for the harvesting of wind energy is the availability of space. Traditional horizontal-axis turbines have big propellors and must be spaced far apart to avoid interference. Newer vertical-axis turbines use a vertical rotor and more may be placed in a smaller array. Graduate students at the California Institute of Technology have determined that the placement of such vertical turbines in specific arrays may yield significantly highe
r energy gains by taking advantage of the manner in which air moves through the array. Their model - schools of fish. The vortices created by fish moving in a school can be used to understand how one turbine may influence those around it. The Cal Tech researchers believe that the application of these principles may result in a ten-fold increase in the wind energy that can be generated from a given area.
Schools of fish, that is. A major problem with the development of "wind farms" for the harvesting of wind energy is the availability of space. Traditional horizontal-axis turbines have big propellors and must be spaced far apart to avoid interference. Newer vertical-axis turbines use a vertical rotor and more may be placed in a smaller array. Graduate students at the California Institute of Technology have determined that the placement of such vertical turbines in specific arrays may yield significantly highe
r energy gains by taking advantage of the manner in which air moves through the array. Their model - schools of fish. The vortices created by fish moving in a school can be used to understand how one turbine may influence those around it. The Cal Tech researchers believe that the application of these principles may result in a ten-fold increase in the wind energy that can be generated from a given area.
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