Wind turbines inspired by condor wings capture more energy

Energy

With information from New Scientist – 05/02/2024

aerodynamic wing tips

A curved tip, inspired by the shape of the condor’s wings and placed at the end of the wind turbine blades, promises to increase the energy generated by the wind turbines without significant additional investments.

These structures are known as aerodynamic ends, wing tips or by the English term winglet.

Several species of birds have upturned wingtips, which helps maximize lift. This has already served as inspiration for the wings of several aircraft models – in some of them the structure is also called “rosemary” -, which led a Canadian team to test the concept at the feet of giant turbines used to generate wind energy.

And, even to be compatible in dimensional terms, the team designed wing tips based on the heaviest flying bird in the world, the Andean condor, which can cover great distances despite weighing up to 15 kilograms.

Professor Khashayar Rahnamaybahambary, from the University of Alberta, in Canada, highlights that, although taking advantage of this aerodynamic technology seems natural, collecting experimental data on wind turbines is very difficult due to their size.

But a computer simulation of airflow through a turbine showed that these wing tips effectively reduce drag, which could increase their power generation efficiency by 10% on average.

“Another perspective is that aerodynamic ends allow turbines to capture more wind energy, minimizing losses [por resistncia],” said Rahnamaybahambary.

Wind turbine sock

The aerodynamic ends can be installed after the turbine is manufactured and assembled, installed “like a sock” placed on the end of the blade, the researcher proposes. His team is already developing such an experimental setup for a field test.

But the conclusions are even more important for new turbine blades, since the addition of wing tips in the production process can generate efficiency increases much more than proportional to the increase in cost in manufacturing the blades.

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