Wind Turbine Blade Design

Blade engineering and design is one of the most complicated and important aspects of modern wind turbine technology. Engineers strive to design blades that extract as much energy from the wind as possible throughout a range of wind speeds and gusts, yet are still durable, quiet and cheap. A variety of ideas for building turbines and teacher handouts are included in this document and at the Web site.

National Standards: 5-8

• INT-B: 3.b. Energy is transferred in many ways.
• INT-B: 3.d. Light interacts with matter by transmission (including refraction), absorption, or scattering (including reflection).
• INT-B: 3.e. Electrical circuits provide a means of transferring electrical energy.
• INT-E: 1.a. Identify appropriate problems for technological design.
• INT-E: 1.b. Design a solution or product.
• INT-E: 1.c. Implement a proposed design.
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Handouts included; model turbine that can quickly interchange blades (some of these are sold by Kidwind, Kelvin, and Pitsco, or you can make your own); multimeters or voltage/current data loggers; box fans; rulers; pictures of wind turbine blades. Materials to make blades: paper plates, cardboard, cardstock, pie tins, index cards, etc. Optional: scale model turbines, wind speed meter, tachometer.