I'm doing a project in school and am researching designs, but I haven't found any experiments involving the pinwheel shape for a wind turbine designAll of my group members are really into the pinwheel shape because they've seen the paper ones, but I'm more than a little skeptical about whether it would actually work in aluminum (I know it's light, but not as much as paper!)I really need good sources to be able to prove my point, so a lot of source information would be much appreciated!
your stick is probably made out of aircraft grade aluminum (t6061 t6) if you try to hammer on it it will most likely crack br cause it has been tempered
Any pinwheel, windmill, or turbine extracts energy from the air by slowing it downIt can't extract all of the energy or else the air would come to a standstillPropellers and similar designs are more efficient because they sweep out a large volume with each revolution, but allow the air (the wind) to flow past the propeller as it movesOnly at the hub (the center) which is a small diameter, does the air pile up and have to change direction without imparting energy to the propellerThe pinwheel, in contrast, has a large area in the center that is solid and doesn't let air flow straight on past the pinwheelThis air piles up and changes direction without imparting useful energy to the pinwheelVisually you can look at the pinwheel and see that there is a large area in the center that you can't see through regardless of how far the pinwheel has rotatedThis area does not extract energy from the windSo the pinwheel sweeps out less volumn than a propeller, and therefore should be less efficient If you want to do a science project, you could theorize that the dead area (my term) effects efficiency, then make multiple pinwheel/propeller designs that have a varying degree of dead areaTake experimental data and compare the results with your hypothesisThe material itself shouldn't make a big difference if it can hold its shapeIt takes a little more energy to accelerate a more massive propeller or pinwheel up to speed, but once at speed it doesn't make a differenceAnd when the wind dies down, most of that energy that went into accelerating the mass can be harvested.
Yeah, use a rubber mallet.
