Vertical axis wind turbine

[arthur.cha...@gmail.com]

Hi everybody

My name is Arthur Chaillot, from ACE, a french student association specialized in formation of self-construction of small wind turbines. With 13 members of ACE, we are trying to design in open source a vertical axis wind turbine with easy materials.

So we will be happy to receive any information you have that could help us about this special kind of wind turbine project.

Cheers

Arthur Chaillot

[Hugh Piggott]

Hi Arthur,

i am glad that you are making wind turbines because it is a fun thing to do and you will learn a lot doing it.  But I do suggest that you look at the history of vertical axis wind turbines.  They are constantly popular but constantly unsuccessful.  The reasons are clear.  It's not a good design approach.  It's a waste of time actually and it wastes a lot of people's time because they do not check the history of the subject.  Over the years there have been endless vertical axis wind turbines that have not been successful.  But everyone thinks they can make one that will work.

Vertical axis wind turbines have problems with starting and with regulating their speed.  The efficiency is low.  The blades suffer from fatigue.  I don't actually know of any advantage to using vertical axis.  Read more here http://www.wind-works.org/cms/index.php?id=116  to me it is a tragedy that so many people waste so much time trying to work with this type of wind turbine.

I hope this helps

Hugh