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Post by coastalrocketeer on Jan 10, 2018 9:20:37 GMT -8
This was inspired by a response of yours in your post about your stoves, and after writing and posting it, I realized it was off topic for not only the post, but the whole forum. So I moved it here to share it with you and anyone else to hopefully enjoy, and maybe power your home with.
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Post by Vortex on Jan 10, 2018 11:23:43 GMT -8
You forgot to copy the post so here they are below. Hi 1967gto, No, unfortunately not. Everything seems to have been conspiring against me. My hydro-electric generator broke-down before xmas and that took a lot of my spare time to fix, I had to build a new pelton runner for it, which is a highly complex part. Then I got the Aussie Flu and was really ill for 3 weeks with that. I have managed to make the Hearth Shelf that goes in front below the door level, chimney manifold, and most of the ashbox door. I'm held up with finishing them because my pillar drill broke and I've not been able to get hold of a replacement part. I hope to get it finished in the next month. I'll get some new pictures up soon. Since you use hydro power, and because of your name... I find myself wondering if you have ever seen the low head "vortex hydro power turbine"? youtu.be/oo_mP18IXMoKilowatts of power with 1.7 meters of head... Requires significant structure, but is fish safe and you can put the next one just 1.7 meters of elevation down stream... Water enters from a chute tangentially, at the edge, and increases in velocity (and it's amount of easily extractable energy) until it hits the "paddle-drum" in the center, loses it's circular momentum to that, and drops down through the center hole. Increases the kinetic energy of the water the same way one of those parabolic coin ramp "games" takes a slow moving penny dropped in at the edge, and by the middle, causes it to have a lot more kinetic energy than if you had just dropped it straight down a foot instead, and in a LOT less space than a ramp (pipe) capable of the same velocity/kinetic energy increase. So if space is at a premium and in that you cannot pipe water from significantly uphill, one of these will give you the same power in a low head, less spread out space. The drawbacks are that it's a lot to build. Would likely be significantly more environmentally friendly to build it out of certain geopolymers or reclaimed brick than cement. People have built home scale 1 to 2kw versions out of many other materials. My synopsis: There is amplification of extractable kinetic energy in the speed increases caused by vortexes... Which can be applied to wind power and probably most any other fluid driven impeller system. youtu.be/1FA2H1HiL3oSorry for dumping this in your stove build thread. If you want to discuss it more I can create a separate post. Hi Coastal, thanks for your post. My username is actually an anagram of part of my name, but I've always been interested in vortices. I imagined that style vortex generator in my head about 25 years ago, but was too stoned at the time to get it together to try building it.  The first one I heard about in existence was a small unit manufactured and sold in Vietnam 20 years ago. I've built several Pelton wheel systems which are more suited to the small mountain streams that we have here. Mine can run on as little as 1.5 liters a second which is really useful in a dry summer. |
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Post by drooster on Jan 10, 2018 12:41:46 GMT -8
Trevor-X is a kind of Superhero name.
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Post by coastalrocketeer on Jan 11, 2018 1:22:35 GMT -8
You forgot to copy the post so here they are below. Since you use hydro power, and because of your name... I find myself wondering if you have ever seen the low head "vortex hydro power turbine"? youtu.be/oo_mP18IXMoKilowatts of power with 1.7 meters of head... Requires significant structure, but is fish safe and you can put the next one just 1.7 meters of elevation down stream... Water enters from a chute tangentially, at the edge, and increases in velocity (and it's amount of easily extractable energy) until it hits the "paddle-drum" in the center, loses it's circular momentum to that, and drops down through the center hole. Increases the kinetic energy of the water the same way one of those parabolic coin ramp "games" takes a slow moving penny dropped in at the edge, and by the middle, causes it to have a lot more kinetic energy than if you had just dropped it straight down a foot instead, and in a LOT less space than a ramp (pipe) capable of the same velocity/kinetic energy increase. So if space is at a premium and in that you cannot pipe water from significantly uphill, one of these will give you the same power in a low head, less spread out space. The drawbacks are that it's a lot to build. Would likely be significantly more environmentally friendly to build it out of certain geopolymers or reclaimed brick than cement. People have built home scale 1 to 2kw versions out of many other materials. My synopsis: There is amplification of extractable kinetic energy in the speed increases caused by vortexes... Which can be applied to wind power and probably most any other fluid driven impeller system. youtu.be/1FA2H1HiL3oSorry for dumping this in your stove build thread. If you want to discuss it more I can create a separate post. Hi Coastal, thanks for your post. My username is actually an anagram of part of my name, but I've always been interested in vortices. I imagined that style vortex generator in my head about 25 years ago, but was too stoned at the time to get it together to try building it. The first one I heard about in existence was a small unit manufactured and sold in Vietnam 20 years ago. I've built several Pelton wheel systems which are more suited to the small mountain streams that we have here. Mine can run on as little as 1.5 liters a second which is really useful in a dry summer. I can see how that would be a more applicable tech in a naturally high-head location... Ah the ideas we think of and miss developing for the fact that developing an idea past a set of impulses in one's neurons, and making a real thing, then marketing it.... Is a LOT of work, that may in the end find you trying to market your product in threat to the multi million+ dollar profit stream of an existing product or service... Or just being cannabinoid endowed and realizing there REALLY are more important things, like love, family, and enjoyment of all that those wandering neurons perceive in this "vida loca"... Back in the 80's I REALLY wanted to have the CD Walkman I'd bought with money from my first job, play to my car stereo. I came up with the idea of sending the audio signal from the headphone jack to a cassette deck "read/write" head mounted in a cassette body, and once in the deck, magnetically transmitting that audio signal to the head of the car's cassette deck. Explained my idea in detail to a friend, and his response was "oh yeah! That WOULD be cool to be able to do!" Six months later we were in in radio shack whe he frantically called me over to the audio systems and electronics area of the store. "There it is! Your invention!" I was less surprised... Knowing that any electronics minded person could have come up with such a simple idea. And the fact that it was on the shelves only 6 months after I'd thought of it, meant it was likely that someone else had had that idea first. As to the vortex water turbine, I just love the way it builds and concentrates kinetic energy into the desired point of extraction/conversion using only shape and gravity. I want to build a small scale one 500W to make power from the water that comes off my 2/3 acre, before going into the creek. At certain times of year when we are usually lacking sun, that can be a LOT of water on the Oregon coast. |
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Post by Vortex on Jan 11, 2018 3:30:35 GMT -8
Coastal, This video will give you an idea of some of the problems with vortex style turbines. www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqcOzupGpl8This site sells a small one in the 500W range: powerspout.com/low-head/Be warned though, they'll only sell you spares for ten years, after that it's "end of life" and you either have to buy a new one or you're on your own - how green of them. |
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Post by coastalrocketeer on Jan 11, 2018 6:13:59 GMT -8
Yes, I am actually looking at winding my own coils and making a generator using neodymium magnets I already have.
The difference I see with that design is that it is not using a tangential entrance of the water at a point (or points) on the perimeter of a large parabola that both creates flow in a coherent direction, and increases the water's speed significantly, using shape of that inlet area to the point of contact with the impeller, the impeller shape, the transition past and the exit to increase the net amount of energy extracted from the water falling only a foot down...
Their system does not appear to increase and amplify the coherence of flow in this way before trying to put an impeller in the path of the water, or if they are doing it, they are not optimizing the structure to increase that effect. But it's like masonry stoves. They should be selling the core impeller and designs for the parabolic cones with tangential entry that provides the amplification of coherence of flow, because the large shape required for even that small flow of water is not an easily shippable item, unless made of very lightweight materials and in a compactible/foldable form.
I bet with an force magnifier structure like that, a similar unit with the right shaped impeller could produce 1kw or more from the increase of coherence of extractable kinetic energy.
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Post by Vortex on Jan 11, 2018 11:24:09 GMT -8
I use re-wired Smart Drive motors, they're amazingly robust and long lived. If you don't know them I'd recommend you read up on them, could save yourself a lot of work: www.yourgreendream.com/diy_fp_rewire.phpSome of the videos I've seen of his Low Head hydro have used a tangential position at the end of the millrace / sluice. I don't know how much difference it makes to actual power production, as the falling column of water in the vertical outlet pipe is what produces most of the energy by sucking the water above through the turbine. There's a thread on the forum with a few old picture of my Pelton wheel hydro here: donkey32.proboards.com/thread/2206/micro-hydro-electric-system |
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Post by coastalrocketeer on Jan 11, 2018 13:08:59 GMT -8
I think the parabola amplifies or focuses the force to being mostly in the horizontal plane, which can produce more power of the impeller is designed and optimized specifically for gathering the power in that plane, but it would not show as much, if any increase for an impeller that was optimized to gather energy from the water as it travels in the vertical plane.
Thanks for the smart-drive motors link! I'm always looking for something I can scavenge and repurpose, or buy cheaply because it's original use is obsolete, or the machine it's from has been junked over a different failure.
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Post by coastalrocketeer on Jan 11, 2018 13:14:10 GMT -8
I think the increase mainly comes from the fact that it retains the kinetic energy from the lateral flow of the water and delivers it to the impeller along with the energy of the vertical drop.
For extremely low head systems like this it allows one to get the energy of that horizontal motion which is significantly more than the energy from the system's amount of vertical drop, if your mill race and parabola are placed and proportioned properly.
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Post by Vortex on Jan 11, 2018 13:55:49 GMT -8
You'd be amazed at the force a falling column of water in a pipe can induce at the top end. My system has a 3 inch pipe with 130 feet of head, the suction at the top is scary. If you were mad enough to put your hand near it it would suck your arm down the pipe and drain you of blood in a few minutes.
I don't know if those Smart Drives are used in the U.S. They mainly seem to be used in South Asia, Australia, New Zealand & South Africa.
I'm on my second one in 13 years, as the first one got damaged when the rectifier burnt out and short circuited the windings. It still worked after but all the plastic insulation around the coils was melted, so I keep it as a second spare, but it was running constantly day and night for 10 years before that.
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Post by coastalrocketeer on Jan 12, 2018 2:00:10 GMT -8
It really IS amazing how much power a long "stack of water" in a pipe like that can produce...
Though the pressure generated at 130 feet of head is a LOT different than 1.7 meters, or 1 foot, I would think...
Not knocking high head hydro by any means. Much easier to set up if you have unfettered access to the right kind of local topology with a water source far uphill from you...
Here in Oregon I would have to run a pipe in the stream bed up past a few neighbors, and the stream is a protected spawning habitat (where nothing can spawn because of a non fish friendly culvert under the Pacific Coast Highway down stream from us)
The Department of Environmental Quality would fine the hell out of me... Probably more than I could save not buying the electricity the unit would produce.
If you have the head to create the needed pressure and velocity then you're golden...
But if you only have 1.7 meters, or a foot or two of fall on your property, (enough for a 1-2kw unit), and can afford to build the extra structure required, this is a good way to generate a lot of power with an initially low velocity flow of water.
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Post by Vortex on Jan 12, 2018 10:13:54 GMT -8
If the pipe is 1.7 meters long and 230mm wide then it would contain about 70 liters of water - that's 70KG! - imagine 70KG of force suddenly pulling your arm into a hole.
My 250M 3"/75mm pipe has a lot more water but huge amounts of friction because of the massive surface area of the inside of the pipe which is in contact with the water, a wide vertical pipe will have almost zero friction.
I'm lucky to own the land for about 200 meters up the stream, so I was able to run the pipe without any problems, but that's rare, most people wouldn't have that much land and no one would ever give you permission here.
I could have built a much bigger unit but that would mean lots of time when there wouldn't be enough water to run it and I'd need large amounts of expensive batteries to store the power for those times, so overall I think I have the most cost effective setup for my situation. Sounds like a vortex turbine would be the one for you though.
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Post by coastalrocketeer on Jan 13, 2018 3:03:27 GMT -8
Sorry for not completing the removal of my original post from your thread. I'll take care of that now. (Oh, I thought because it was quoted it was referencing the original post still, I see you deleted the original post, or I did and then forgot. Busy last few days!) I think I was trying to clean up the OT interjection, but phone died, and I got distracted replying to a comment on one of my posts, or a reply from someone on a another thread before falling asleep. Then this and a few other curve balls were thrown at me in the following few days.  Power out to 1/2 of town, on road district board, much communicating to get landowner permission and board consensus for power company to top the two other hazard trees, day wiped. As far as the original interjection goes, I wasn't trying to "sell you on the idea" for YOU to research and use, as much as get your opinion on whether the vortex is gaining anything over turbines that just use a round hole passing the same volume of water over time at the same head and without any rotational kinetic energy induced into the water before contact with whatever impeller and housing design is used. It definitely sounds like it is not the optimum type of installation for your climate/topology, and available water flow, for sure. This may well not be any more efficient than any other way of using a low velocity flow of a large amount of water in an un-piped system, but I like the fact that it is fish safe and can pass fairly large debris as well... And frankly, I find it soothing to stare into... :-) My thought just now was that it could be used for generating power from small elevation changes in a way that does not require creating extreme pressure and velocity, or high Rpm's on the main impeller structure... One of these days I'm going to pipe all of my rain-gutters together and feed them through a small version of the vortex turbine... My lot has a nice gentle natural slope down to a creek as the down hill property boundary but not enough drop on the creek, so I should be able to get plenty of head to have 3 or 4 stages added over time. Perhaps "direct" drive heating elements with a thermostat and safety of course, and send the voltage to a battery charger when the tank is already hot, or use the heat with a heat exchanger feeding a hydraulic heating loop of some sort. |
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