… Major Breakthrough in Wind Resource Utilization Using … 'Quad Wind Turbine Array'

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.pr-inside.com/greenward-technologies-announces-a-r1025356.htm

Greenward Technologies Announces a Major Breakthrough in Wind Resource Utilization Using Their 'Quad Wind Turbine Array'

2009-01-26 14:26:32 - Greenward Technologies, Inc. announced today that data from controlled velocity testing of their scale model counter-rotating quad wind turbine array strongly supports the Company's 'Wake Convergence plus Swirl Cancellation' hypothesis.

Ed Salter, the company's Chief Technology Officer, was first alerted to the possible existence of wake convergence by the results of a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) study of wake velocity recovery with a Quad Array that was done in February of 2008. According to Salter, 'The CFD study showed the wind turbine wakes converging into what appeared to be a single flow channel at about 2 ½ to 3 rotor diameters downstream, then fully restoring to free stream velocity at just under 5 rotor diameters. This really got our attention, particularly in view of the fact that the CFD study did not consider the effect of counter-rotating swirl. If the turbine wakes can be made to converge quickly, then it is a virtual physical requirement that the opposing swirls will sum to zero, or cancel each other'.

Salter went on the state that 'Considerable work remains to be done to fully describe this phenomenon and to maximize its effect, but at this point it is safe to say that the combination of four rotors per tower multiplied by the tower spacing reduction factor in two dimensions potentially represents a very large factor for improvement in installed wind turbine capacity per unit of wind resource area or 'wind resource utilization factor', which is expressed as square meters of rotor disk per square kilometer. We could be looking at an approximate ten-fold improvement for the quad array and considerably more for the compound quad or sixteen rotor array when compared to a single turbine per tower. Then there is the additional potential for reduction in O&M costs and improvements in service life due to large reductions of turbulence-induced loading on all components in the load path.'

Company executives have entered into discussions with wind industry experts and aerodynamicists and is seeking funding to continue its work on wake convergence and to develop a fully operational mid-sized prototype array. More information can be found at the Company's web site at: http://greenward-technologies.com/">greenward-technologies.com.

…