RU2504685C1 - Wind-driven electric power plant - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: power industry.

SUBSTANCE: wind-driven electric power plant on a constant air flow includes many wind-driven power plants including wind wheels with an electric generator, a heating element and a wind tunnel. Wind wheels with the electric generator are located in underground tunnels connected to a tower in which gas burners are located, which create a constant air flow. The tower is made from polymer materials, equipped with stiffeners in the form of rings and suspended from ropes to an aerostat. In the wind tunnel mouth of the tower there mounted is a drum with blades, which installed with possibility of rotation and creation of negative pressure under action of horizontal air flows.

EFFECT: wind-driven power plant is suitable for installation in difficult-to-access places and provides the possibility of uninterrupted generation of electric energy, as well as reduction of noise and vibration impacts on the environment.

2 dwg

Description

The invention relates to the field of renewable energy and can be used to convert the kinetic energy of the air stream into mechanical and electrical energy.

The relevance of the invention.

The problem of providing the inhabitants of the Earth with energy is so urgent that it forces militarily powerful countries to forcibly redistribute non-renewable energy sources for their own purposes. Intelligent humanity compensates for the decrease in minerals by the search for alternative sources of energy.

Among the many alternative renewable energy sources, wind energy is very attractive.

The results of studies by American power engineers are impressive, according to the data obtained, even taking into account all the errors and low efficiency (the conversion of kinetic wind energy into mechanical energy at the level of 39-42% and the conversion of mechanical energy into electrical energy at the level of 90-94%), wind farms can provide energy to the whole the globe [1, 2].

Wind energy is developing at a particularly fast pace of 25-30% per year. By 2012, the installed capacity of wind power plants in the world should approach 160 GW [3].

Advantages and disadvantages of wind energy.

Advantages: Environmentally friendly type of energy. Electricity production using “windmills” is not accompanied by emissions of CO2 and other gases. Wind farms take up little space and easily fit into any landscape, and also combine perfectly with other types of economic use of the territories.

Wind energy, in contrast to fossil fuels, is inexhaustible. Wind energy is the best solution for hard to reach places. Disadvantages: instability. The instability lies in the non-guaranteed receipt of the required amount of electricity. A windmill works like a sailboat while there is wind. Relatively low power output. Wind generators are significantly inferior in generating electricity to a diesel generator, which leads to the need to install several turbines at once. In addition, wind turbines are inefficient at peak loads. High cost: the cost of an installation producing 1 mega-watt of electricity is $ 1 million.

Noise pollution, noise produced by “windmills” can be disturbing for both wild animals and people living nearby [16].

Windmills cause low-frequency fluctuations that affect people's health.

The main drawback of these windmills is downtime due to the lack of a permanent wind flow.

No wind - no electricity. Please spend the accumulated.

There are many windmills of various designs of wind wheels and wind turbines [4, 5, 6].

Designers successfully eliminate some of the shortcomings of windmills. At the heart of the Fuller Wind Turbine [17] - a bladeless windmill is a slightly supplemented Tesla turbine, invented in 1913.

Tesla's turbine is a collection of many thin metal discs separated by small gaps. The flow of working fluid or gas flows from the outer edge of the disks and passes through the gaps to the center, twisting and entraining the disks themselves due to the boundary layer effect. In the center, the flow exits through the axial hole.

At altitude, as you know, the wind blows harder than at the surface of the earth. British architects David Amold and Alexa Ratzlaff propose creating special skyscrapers, the main purpose of which will be the generation of wind energy - the wind flow should be accelerated along the helical edges of the building and fed to the windmills located on the roof of the skyscraper [21].

The project is interesting, but not yet recreated even on models. During its movement, the air stream is buzzing, many windmills on the roof of a skyscraper also generate infrasound waves hazardous to human health when the blades work. How to live in such a house?

This project can be taken as the ideological basis of our prototype, as an attempt to use constantly acting air flows at higher altitudes, of course, it is very undesirable to install windmills on the roofs of residential premises.

Known thermal vortex power plant [26], which contains a pipe with a vortex generator, wind wheels mounted on a vertical shaft, and an electric generator. The power plant is equipped with an additional vortex generator, deflector, air heating system. Windwheels are installed in the pipe, and the wings of the windwheel are placed in the swirling airflow zone. The great advantage of this invention is the generation of a constant air flow, which will prevent downtime of the windmill.

The disadvantages are as follows.

The principle of a conventional stove, in the pipe of which a wind wheel is installed. The novelty is that to increase traction, the upward air flow resulting from the temperature difference between the bottom and top of the pipe is brought into a swirl movement, which, according to the authors, should significantly increase the power and speed of the air flow.

It is doubtful that the swirling dynamic movement of the air flow will beneficially affect the wings of the wind wheel or the blades of the wind turbine.

You won’t get much traction in a short section of the pipe in this way, and will not all the electricity of the windmill go to air heating? And most importantly, if there is no heating, then there is no traction, so the wind turbine will stand idle (if the fuel is not brought up or repair work on the heater). Fuel can be used more efficiently in conventional power generators.

This invention is taken by us as a prototype.

The aim of the proposed invention is to increase the efficiency of the wind power plant in constant air flow.

To create a permanent air flow in the pipe, two conditions must be met:

- the presence of a temperature gradient, atmospheric pressure or air density at the ends of the pipe;

- the presence of the same air gradients inside the pipe relative to the environment.

The gradient in atmospheric pressure at the ends of the pipe can be increased by increasing its length from several hundred meters to several kilometers, up to the upper boundary of the troposphere 10-18 km.

To increase the pressure gradient inside the pipe, it is proposed by installing a wind drum with blades at the mouth of the pipe, in which, when it is rotated by the action of horizontal air flows, air pressure develops according to Bernoulli's law, which creates additional traction.

It is proposed to use gas burners mounted on a tower at the mouth of the wind tunnel to heat the air inside the pipe.

To reduce noise and vibration, it is proposed to place wind wheels with electric generators in underground tunnels.

These proposals should increase the efficiency of the wind farm.

The proposed wind power plant with constant air flow includes many wind power plants containing wind wheels with an electric generator, a heating element and a wind tunnel,

characterized in that the wind wheels with an electric generator are located in underground tunnels connected to a tower in which gas burners are located. On the tower at the mouth of the wind tunnel, made of polymer materials with stiffeners in the form of hoops and suspended on ropes from the aerostat, a drum with blades mounted to rotate and create vacuum under the influence of horizontal air flows.

With the successful design of the drum and the presence of wind, the thrust created by it in the wind tunnel will be sufficient for the operation of the power plant and the inclusion of burners is not required, and their joint work will increase the efficiency of wind installations.

As wind power plants, windmills with wind wheels or turbines that are appropriate to the technical and economic calculations and environmental ecology may be acceptable. A wind tunnel with stiffening ribs in the form of polymer hoops is suspended on cables to an aerostat, which is prevented from displacement by the same cables by means of ground automatic tensioning devices.

Under the influence of wind lateral loads, the polymer sleeve can bend, which does not affect the performance of the windmill. a wind tunnel should have a length of several hundred meters or several kilometers, based on technical capabilities.

A strong air flow occurs inside the wind tunnel due to the heating of the air by gas burners, the pressure drop at its ends and the acceleration of the flow during the rotation of the drum. Significant loads on the walls of the wind tunnel are expected.

Of all the variety of polymers under extreme conditions, carbon plastics are the most acceptable. The filler in these polymer composites are carbon fibers, which are obtained from synthetic and natural fibers based on cellulose, copolymers of acrylonitrile oil and coal tar pitch, etc.

On the basis of carbon fibers and a carbon matrix, composite carbon-graphite materials are created that can withstand temperatures up to 3000 degrees in inert or reducing environments for a long time. CFRPs are very lightweight and, at the same time, durable materials [22]. For example, a polymer of this class, called “Hypol”, has the following parameters: operating temperature up to 2000 degrees, chemical inertness to oxidizing media, does not burn, is 1.5 times lighter than aluminum, and is very durable [23]. Of interest is the latest development of Russian scientists - the graphite polymer, which has special and exotic properties [24]. For this development, Russian scientists received the Nobel Prize in 2010.

Carbon-graphite tubes can achieve a strength of 50 times the strength of steel.

Carbon thin films obtained from these polymers may

be used as the walls of an internal wind tunnel.

The grilles and grids of the air intake filtering devices can be made from the same materials.

The material for balloons is usually elastomers, i.e. natural or synthetic rubbers. Rubber has the ability to stretch reversibly up to 900%. Cables laid along the walls of the wind tunnel, with which the structure is attached to balloons, can also be made from the same materials.

The lower part of the tower is made in the form of a diffuser, sealing the air flow.

Scientific equipment (for the period of testing), sensors, video cameras, video and telemetry transmitters are fixed at different levels of the wind tunnel.

Figure 1 presents a side view of a wind power station in section; figure 2 is a view of the power station from above,

Where:

1 - balloon, 2 - gondola with instrumentation, 3 - cable, 4 - tension device, 5 - wind tunnel, 6 - drum with blades, 7 - embankment, 8 - air intake with filter, 9 - wind power installation (wind wheels with an electric generator), 10 - a tunnel, 11 - a diffuser, 12 - stiffeners, 13 - gas burners, 14 - a tower, 15 gas pipeline.

Installation progress.

Choose a place unsuitable for industrial and agricultural use. They build tunnels with air intakes and a tower with a diffuser. They install wind wheels in the tunnels with electric generators and sprinkle this structure with earth. A drum with blades rotating on ball bearings is installed on the tower.

It is easy to bring the assembled balloon, reels with polymer film and arc hoops, as well as tensioning devices with a wound cable to the installation site.

The balloon 1 is brought into working condition, attached to the tension devices 4, the nacelle 2, which is equipped with instrumentation and slowly lifted into the air. To the tensioned cables 3 fasten sections of the wind tunnel 5 with stiffeners 12 in the form of polymer hoops. As the pipe builds up due to the docking of its sections, the balloon rises.

In parallel with these works, inside the building of the electrical substation, a controller, inverter, ATS, transformer and power line interface are mounted. A ground observation station and a repeater are installed for automatic monitoring and control of the electrical substation at a distance.

Electricity from the generators comes through a cable to the controller, which controls the entire power system of the station. Further, the energy is transformed and supplied through the interface to the power lines of the national network.

To provide energy to the devices of the power plant itself and nearby monitoring devices, an inverter and an ABP are used. ATS allows you to switch the power supply of the facility when stopping the wind power installation (repair, maintenance) to other installations or mountains. electricity grid.

Since the power plant is automatic, all of its parameters and video surveillance are transmitted through the repeater to the data collection point in the district power grid.

The proposed wind farm is simple, and therefore low cost and cost effective. It is unpretentious in choosing a place - suitable in hard-to-reach conditions. She is not afraid of the lack of wind and its strong gusts.

Wind power plants hidden in underground tunnels do not create unnecessary noise and vibration impacts on the environment and can work near settlements. The device is convenient for maintenance and the wind tunnel itself, it is enough to pull the aerostat with tensioning devices to the ground.

The design of the wind farm does not impose restrictions on the length and diameter of the wind tunnel, on the number of installed wind power plants, and therefore on its productivity.

Claims (1)

A constant-flow wind power plant comprising a number of wind power plants comprising wind wheels with an electric generator, a heating element and a wind tunnel, characterized in that the wind wheels with an electric generator are located in underground tunnels connected to the tower in which the gas burners are located, on the tower in the mouth of a wind tunnel made of polymeric materials with stiffening ribs in the form of hoops and suspended from ropes to an aerostat, a drum with a thunder was mounted shi installed with the possibility of rotation and the creation of rarefaction under the action of horizontal air flows.

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