FloDesign's jet engine-inspired wind turbine wins prizes

The wind power business, dominated by international conglomerates deploying mature technology, is a tough nut to crack.

A small Massachusetts-based start-up, FloDesign Wind Turbine, this week won two clean-energy competitions with a "shrouded turbine" design that it says can generate three to four times more electricity than today's hulking wind turbines.

FloDesign Wind Turbine says its "shrouded turbine" is three to four times more productive than traditional blade turbines.

(Credit: FloDesign Wind Turbine)

The company has gotten attention from Al Gore in his role as partner at venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, according to news Web site Xconomy which cited an unnamed source.

FloDesign Wind Turbine CEO Stan Kowalski III, who is traveling in California, was not immediately available to comment on Thursday.

FloDesign Wind Turbine's design draws on its jet engine expertise from parent company, aerospace engineering firm FloDesign.

In a video (embedded below), the company describes its turbine design, which takes a radically different approach than the rotor-based wind turbines that dominate the market now.

FloDesign Wind Turbine's design resemble a jet engine, an approach that allows it to capture much more wind energy while taking up less space than traditional turbines.

When wind hits a turbine, it's constructed so that different air flows create a rapid-mixing vortex. A fin directs it to face the direction of the wind to maximize the amount of energy it receives.

The company said its machines can be used for utility-scale wind farms or corporate customers.

On Monday, the company won a prize valued at more than $100,000 in cash and services from the MIT Enterprise Forum Ignite Clean Energy competition. On Tuesday, it won the MIT Clean Energy Entrepreneurship Prize competition, which had a top prize of $200,000.

[Burnsie001]

Just another peice of vapourware.

[fred dunn]

As much exposed surface as this new design has I do not think it would be capable of protecting itself from high winds as well as the standard variable pitch propeller design.

I can see this design either having to have 3-4 times the ground support or just being damaged by high winds.

[cvye]

One word: Birds.

This would never pass environmental assessment testing.

[Marc Myers]

If conventional wind generators extract 50% of the wind's energy and this new design extracts four or five times as much, doesn't that mean it extracts 200% - 250% of the wind's energy?

[Melekai]

Why is everybody bashing this?

[windwaerts]

The turbine is only 1/10 of the size of the standart wind turbines and generates up to 4 times more energy.
Everyone from grade 6 on can do the physiks on this. Then you will come to the point that the arguments in sum will not work together properly.
Turbines with a diameter bigger then 50m will run into huge problems.
To summarize, it is a nice video and it brought the guys 300.000$. From that perspective quite an efficient video. More then the turbine can ever dream of.

[cleanupthecove]

It is not a simple geometric scaling. The flow pattern has changed to enhance the low pressure region behind the rotor drawing more mass flow through the sweet spot. It is a modification of the flow to manipulate pressure and drag of the device. You can't take a simple 6th grade understanding where physics has not been taught and understand the flow modifications.

[EnerM]

We will need a diversity of technologies to efficiently extract energy from the diverse environments here and around the world. This technology may not scale well or may only work for some environments but it seems worth investigating.

[Kulvant 1]

This design has been copied from a Indian engineer who has already applied for patent in march or April 2006. He has all the design parameters the CFDs the wind tunnel test results and the actual field test results. He is now planning to go ahead to challenge your design legally

[Investor61]

I am an active investor in this area, and would be interested in learning more about your claims. Can you share more information? Those patent applications should be public by now..

[cleanupthecove]

Can you supply a patent number so we can evaluate your comment and claim? And by the way, this is a nes article and a review, not the company posting so they wull not see your message to THEM.

[thegreatino]

FloDesign is the parent company of FloDesign Wind Turbine. FloDesign has been working with diffusers/mixers on jet engines for many years now with the same concept, creating more thrust due to suction caused by pressure differences from inlet to outlet. I highly doubt some engineer is going to win a lawsuit versus a company that has made existing diffuser products for years. There are also many technical papers written by the founders of FloDesign Wind Turbine about the possibility of using diffusers on wind turbines dating far before April 2006. Not to mention the idea itself is from the 70's.

[veritasnow]

The Indian engineer cannot validate his claims. He has no patent and has not given anyone here reason to believe he has a turbine. All Indian and US patents were searched without results of any "Jet" type turbine other than Flo Design. He has no case. Welcome to the future of FloDesign.

[Jhssr]

I believe the FloDesign is a little late. A company called Future Energy Solutions Inc. has patented (along with other patents and International patents pending) and has an operational wind turbine called the Wind Tamer. The patent they have looks and reads just like the animation described in FloDesign's video. They have independent testing showing that the Wind Tamer is 28% efficient right now and believe they will be above 35% before production starts in the fall of this year. The best part -it starts up with less than 5 MPH wind with no maximum (tested up to 75 mph) and only has to be 12-15 feet of the ground for safety reasons. To see this go to www.windtamerturbines.com and see for yourself.

[Kulvant 1]

You are talking of 35% efficiency, the turbine which is designed by this Indian engineer is more than 40 to 45%, the startup speed is 1 m/sec, the cutin speed is 1.4 m/sec and there is no cutout speed. The turbine is light weight and very compact. The present prototype is of the capacity of 2 KW. The capacity increases with the size and is designed for 25kw maximum presently. The figures are actual and certified.

[thegreatino]

The wind tamer does not use the same laws of fluid dynamics as the FloDesign Turrbine. I also can not find very much in terms of technical papers explaining how this device is working, there is very little information besides the patent.

[lem0527]

I wonder if this could be an attic version.

[humptydumpty07]

Interesting day for big wind... Another article was published by MIT Technology Review about a new "variable input electric generator" by a company called ExRo Technologies.

Here is the link: http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/21666/?a=f

If companies like these pair up it looks like T. Boone Pickens wind farm, regardless of oil prices, might have a chance...

[humptydumpty07]

Interesting day for big wind... Another article was published by MIT Technology Review today about a new "variable input electric generator" by a company called ExRo Technologies.

If companies like these pair up it looks like T. Boone Pickens wind farm, regardless of oil prices, might have a chance...

[Kulvant 1]

We have all the details of our design and are in a process of manufacturing these efficient turbines. There many investors who have signed up contracts with us from various countries.

[Kulvant 1]

You are requested to contact the inventor Mr Burman his email ID is [e-mail]

[veritasnow]

As stated earlier, the Indian Inventor is all wind (pun intended). If there was a patent registered he would have posted it here in support of his case, but searches have been done and it simply does not exist. Perhaps he is just trying to solicit funds for R&D?

[priittruusalu]

Well, can anybody comment about how all these fancy turbines will survive icing?

As with airplanes, icing - inevitable with moist air below freezing temperatures - will change aerodynamics significantly, up to clogging the whole turbine.

[jmg_]

Any Turbine Promo that fails to give operational specs, is simply a pitch for funds from the easily duped.

To properly compare Ducted turbines, you should quote Power per WindLoadArea. (but, of course, that's not as rosy as blade diameter ratio claims...)

Ducted Turbines have Serious inherent WindLoading problems, so they are really a Niche product,and should not waste time trying to pitch AGAINST open-spaces turbines.

A Ducted Turbine COULD have application in urban areas (subject to noise, and bird-strike), where they could also use the ducting effects of Buildings.

[jmg_]

Ahhh, The world of patents - where a LOT of effort goes into trying to sound different, in your claims.
At least different enough to avoid hits on other prior art, and get the initial patent granted.

Of course, ducted turbines look similar, because they use similar fluid dynamic principles......

[wickedtwiste]

noise... how much noise?

[AllisonFan]

The NASA 3 bladed wings have long been known to be very inefficient.
One has to welcome another approach but what is the efficiency?

Allison fans have hit the theoretical maximum over 20 years ago.
And they are very simple.

America is beginning to appear like Laputa under the guidance of the great academy of Lagado.

A bunch of dufus characters who do not know what they are doing or talking about.

The fan here is far more complex than the Allison Fan which is patented.
And Bill Allison who perfected the wind engine was a bonafide engineer who created the Packard Torsion ride suspension.

The blades must be dead flat and highly polished to pull the power and any configuration must never be tested in a confined flow wind tunnel otherwise the data will be erroneous because in the real world the wind can choose it's route and can avoid a fan not designed to kill the cone of resistance that builds up in front.

[AllisonFan]

The video points out that the blades are propeller configured... perhaps more wing configured.

Propellers are designed to place energy into the wind. Wings are designed to lift in the wind hence the NASA goofyness.

Bill Allison, after patenting an airfoil discovered that the key to the problem is a resistor not a propeller.

Hence his highly polished flat blades that are staged.

His work is unassailable.