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The rotation of the blade tips is limited in absolute terms by the speed of sound.

Divide the speed of sound by three times the diameter of the blade to get the maximum RPM allowed (of the order of tens thousand for a vacuum cleaner, of the order of a hundred for a wind turbine).

So, in what may be my last act of "advising", I'll advise you to cut the jargon. -- My old PhD advisor, to me, 26/2/11

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Mar 3rd, 2011 at 12:42:31 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I think that speed close to 80-100m/s (Crazy Horse can confirm), so only a third of the speed of sound, are already a pretty hard limit, for reasons of acoustics as well as damage to the tips of the blades. So in practice, large wind turbines rotate at something like 20-30rpm or so.

Wind power
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Thu Mar 3rd, 2011 at 12:53:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Okay, if the blades were made of unobtainium the limit would be the speed of sound.

So, in what may be my last act of "advising", I'll advise you to cut the jargon. -- My old PhD advisor, to me, 26/2/11
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Mar 3rd, 2011 at 05:15:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Sure. But naturally the same laws work in a vacuum cleaner. 2000W motor creates a certain wind speed related to the physical dimensions. And the generator speed is not limited to the rotor speed.

I'm just curious about the difference in costs between these two "machines."

by kjr63 on Thu Mar 3rd, 2011 at 12:57:48 PM EST
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A vacuum cleaner is not a reversible transducer, due to turbulence or something.  I think it's similar to the feynmann story about sprinklers in swimming pools.

Oh, and vacuum cleaner motors are universal motors, which don't make very good generators.  You generally want either an externally excited motor, a permanent magnet motor, or a synchronous AC motor for good generation capacity.  These are more expensive.

And then there is synchonisation with the grid, stability, remote control, self protection in high winds, abrasion (the vacuum cleaner turbine is in a dust free environment - I once tried to use my mum's vacuum cleaner without the bag, with a second pipe from the blow hole out the window.  It lasted about 5 minutes before it seized up.)

by njh on Thu Mar 3rd, 2011 at 06:49:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Obviously generator and vacuum cleaner motor have a somewhat different construction. However, motors and generators are so similar by design that it is hard to believe significant cost difference between them. And naturally there are other costs than just motor. But so has a simple vacuum cleaner.

Anyway, Jerome's graph includes transfer price? That's half of the overall price, so the actual (end) production cost is in fact about 40e/MWh.

by kjr63 on Fri Mar 4th, 2011 at 02:09:18 PM EST
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Cheap motors are cheap.  But they don't make good generators.
by njh on Tue Mar 8th, 2011 at 05:02:43 PM EST
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