Green Wavelength unveils bumblebee inspired wind turbine

Gizmag’s pages are filled with clever examples of biomimicry, and why not, evolution is after all the biggest, oldest and most successful design house we know of. Today’s lesson is being given by insects like bumblebees, hummingbirds, and dragonflies, whose efficient wing flapping capabilities are being harnessed by Californian start-up Green Wavelength in an effort to produce more efficient wind turbines.

Vertical axis windmills have been with us in one form or another for more than 1000 years. Designs have undergone constant improvement (including more examples of biomimicry using the whale as inspiration), but the efficiency of current wind turbines peaks at around 30%. To be fair, Betz’s law, says that it’s not theoretically possible to capture more than 59.3 percent of the kinetic energy in wind, but there is still some room for improvement.

Green Wavelength’s 19-foot, aluminum and carbon fiber prototype known as XBee was unveiled last month at the Perfect Pitch 2009 entrepreneur conference in California. It can be mounted both vertically and horizontally and the blades move in a figure eight motion.

Reead more . . .

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Tags: bumble bee, bumblebee wind turbine, bumblebees, examples of biomimicry, kinetic energy, vertical axis, william kamkwamba, wind turbines

This entry was posted on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 9:39 am and is filed under Innovation, Project Energy, gizmag. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.