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Forum Index : Windmills : Implux
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| 9c12m Newbie  Joined: 04/09/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 28 |
The Implux wind generator http://www.katru.com.au/katru.html was on the ABC's New Inventors http://www.abc.net.au/tv/newinventors/txt/s3203927.htm . |
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| SnowGhost Newbie Joined: 09/09/2010 Location: AustraliaPosts: 16 |
Looks like a typical "new gen" wind turbine. Lots of CG. lots of "virtual wind tunnel" testing. The design inherently interferes with nice smooth airflow. Nothing exists though. And it's been 5 years. And there is this wonderful bit IMPLUX" is no different to standard wind machines: no wind = no power. However, "IMPLUX" is capable of extracting higher levels of power at lower wind speeds and hence can produce power for longer time periods. Further, if the wind direction changes rapidly and repeatedly, standard machines cannot deliver any power. "IMPLUX" can continuously deliver power in such an environment. No point in extracting power at low wind, when there is no power. I wouldn't invest in this company. |
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| smithy Regular Member  Joined: 30/01/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 52 |
I had a good look at this one as well. Nice "shroud" around the wind turbine, but I'm not convinced it really actually increases the airflow. I'm also not sure why they have a HAWT, made to sit like a VAWT. If you wanted to increase air flow , then you would have a large input area, and then reduce the area through which you push the same volume of air (it then would have increased wind speed). This unit does exactly the opposite. I don't get it. But it does look nice on top of a building. "The answer my friend is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind" Bob Dylan |
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rossmcn Newbie Joined: 03/05/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 4 |
Hi it appears to combine the ability to turn horizontal wind into vertical wind, with a mild venturi effect to marginally improve the velocity, sort of creating a low pressure area above the blade, by the look of the overall shape of the 'vessel' see Andrew's comments on venturis on http://www.engineeringexchange.com/group/greenengineering?co mmentId=2316460%3AComment%3A82366&xg_source=msg_com_group The idea obviously has some merit but it would be very difficult to scale it up to anything of substance, power wise. The inventor said, in the New Inventors video, that they were capturing around 80% of the wind profile and running around 50% efficiency, which I personally find to be highly suspect, just looking at the thing. cheers Ross Technology has the advantage that it is 'real'. Theories, even laws, are ultimately only our best current model. Consequently, inevitably they will eventually be replaced with a better model |
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MacGyver Guru  Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
rossmcn You're right; wind is wind. What I would do is find out the propeller's diameter and plug it into Alton's Calculator to see exactly how much power it would produce in any given wind. That pretty much levels the playing field video or no video! . . . . . Mac Nothing difficult is ever easy! Perhaps better stated in the words of Morgan Freeman, "Where there is no struggle, there is no progress!" Copeville, Texas |
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| MacGyver Guru Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
rossmcn You're right; wind is wind. What I would do is find out the propeller's diameter and plug it into Alton's Calculator to see exactly how much power it would produce in any given wind. That pretty much levels the playing field video or no video! . . . . . Mac Nothing difficult is ever easy! Perhaps better stated in the words of Morgan Freeman, "Where there is no struggle, there is no progress!" Copeville, Texas |
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varan sureshan Newbie Joined: 16/05/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 3 |
Hi All, Thanks for the comments. I thought of giving some clarifications. Yes there is no power at low wind and I have tried hard telling that out there and failed so our answer was a compromise to satisfy all. There are too many product sellers out there claiming theirs works at 1m/s and I gave up trying to convince authorities that it was just a marketing gimmick and is worth nothing for micro turbines. We have built and tested several sizes to checkout its operation over the last 3 years. (Not nothing in 5 years)But we did not want to put anything out until we built and tested a large one on top of a high rise. (wind tunnel and truck mounted tests are not the real thing for BWT units). I think you should try doing it and will realize it is next to impossible to get someone to loan their building if you did not have a major backer. On that point as we did not want to seek investors before we proved it, it has resulted in no major backer. (so please dont give tips about investment. we are paying the penalty for not doing what all the others are doing. Not that we have not been approached by many who wanted to cash in on the wave - while the cost of work over 6 years has been substantial - passion kept it going) Yes the shape is counter-intuitive. Thats where the patent and research comes from. The patent office is filled with designs where you take a large area and reduce it and pretend that the wind is going to speed up to 3 times and you are going to get 30 times power. I am sure all the real wind boffins know that does not work. Also it is correct to say that we were not attempting to boost power or massively increase air flow. (The research papers were published at the European Wind Energy Conference 2008). The idea was to find another way to extract energy from the complex air flow above buildings and safely contain it and stop the annoyance of moving blades disturbing vision out side your office block. Appears very easy- take a hAWT stick it vertical and put some turning vanes. We thought so too. Unfortunately not so. The biggest challenge was to make sure the wind did not slow down and lose half of it or lose energy negotiating the shroud. More importantly that it did not get out the other side which was an easier path than to go through the rotor blades. Thats where all the years went by. But slowly we found ways to improve it by three fold from our original low values. The only ones which could cope with turbulent wind were the Savonius's but on very low efficiency, despite all the claims by the HAWTS. The VAWTS will probably do a better job (not doing so 5 years ago)but we thought we will find another way. Thats all. Trying to do something at a time when the others were talking. That too with zero help from our government. We will still have to battle coal prices. I hope this answers some of the questions. we are hoping that we can address some of the issues which keep wind energy extraction away from cities. Hoping this would open the gates for others to come up with new designs. Thanks Varan |
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Gizmo Admin Group  Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5078 |
Hi Varan I did see the New Inventers show and thought it looked like a good idea. Its very clever to duct the wind through a horizontally mounted turbine, and it sounds like you have done a lot of research and real world testing to get the shroud working the way you envisioned. Hope it works well for you. Do you have a web site that you would like to share? Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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| varan sureshan Newbie Joined: 16/05/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 3 |
By the way we do have a web site and we are not trying to sell anything. It has been there to post our work progress over the last few years. Also Implux was not intended for wind farms or units bigger than 5m rotor ( more likely 3m max) because we dont have football fields on roof tops. So upscaling was not a question. Only using multiple units. Thanks  Varan |
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| varan sureshan Newbie Joined: 16/05/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 3 |
Sorry the web site seems to have been missed. www.katru.com.au thanks Varan |
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| Gizmo Admin Group Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5078 |
Thanks Varan. I'll close this thread now. Sometimes the feedback on public forums can be detrimental to a project such as yours, at least until it gets to market. Good luck with your project, and please let us know how it goes in the future. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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