Testing 3 Wind Turbines from Thingiverse

Appreciate all the effort in printing the turbines. One thing I would consider a major flaw in the testing was the directing of the stream of air to what made the turbine spin the fastest. Sitting out in the actual wind, BOTH sides of the turbine will be getting hit by wind in the same direction. I think the design of the side turning INTO the wind would have a huge impact on efficiency. Doing it the way you did we couldn't get a realistic result. I'm not trying to trash your test by any means. I am genuinely curious to see how each turbine would respond with equal wind force hitting both sides. Maybe move the blower back more and center it? Even if it goes slow we can get an idea how it works as a whole.

Hey! nice video! you mind if I test these in my wind tunnel? it kinda my thing!

that pelton design is pretty cool

Wow that pelton turbine is super effective...thanks for posting

Free wheel speed is a matter of pitch and airflow velocity. The next test should be to load them to best efficiency point, and see which one can actually generate the most power based on swept volume and airflow velocity. The different turbine designs will for sure, produce their maximum power at different speeds and torque.

You're testing them wrong, wind does not come from one point or direction!!

when doing comparison test, it's better to put the blower at the same position corresponding to the circle center ( if the radius of the three types are the same).
I felt the distance between blower opening and the edge of the turbine in second test is closer than that in the first one.
third one (Pelton design) is the best without any question even I felt the distance of the blower open is far a little bit

Not a very good test method as there was no air pressure on the advancing faces, if you selectively direct the air in the manner of your test you could get a power reading out of almost any shape, also changing the angle of the air source can influence the output as demonstrated in your test, for a fair test you would need an air source wider than the test subject to assert force on the advancing and trailing faces at the same time, you could maybe try building a small form wind tunnel, but it would (for a fair test) have to demonstrate laminar flow at the test distance, this could be achieved by the straw stack method, there are quite a few examples of this design of tunnel on youtube, thank you for the video anyway.

Very good! However, one note: I would explain lift type devices as those that through their aerodynamical shape create a pressure differential which redirects an airflow around them because the higher pressure air strives to flow to the lower pressure region . And redirected airflow provokes a counter-reaction, which drives the turbine.

Nice work! Do you think a full print of the pelton would make any difference? I was geeked out to see you get over 20v with it.

For the Ugrinsky design you had to blow more on one side than on the other? I am very surprised to see how the pelton design perform. Indeed, the three turbines had the same diameter, and I suppose that the voltage is proportional to the rotational speed which can't be greater than the tangential speed of the air. It would be interesting if you actually draw current of your generator, to compare the actual produced power. Thank you for your testing, I subscribed!

if a turbine performs much better using a particular angle or cross section you can also shield the turbine from the outside wind using a directional plate in front of it that redirects the wind into the best angle and shields the remaining parts of the design from external turbulence etc... in a Pelton wheel this is of course necessary because they ALWAYS direct the flow only to one side... 3 cup wind anemometers are Pelton designs that use a triangular offset to assure rotation however there are still significant efficiency losses with that design...

Outstanding overview with comparisons! Great channel, too!

To the previous comment, by JVielo, is of course, 100% correct so after making the source into a laminar flow then you can make a rectangular horn with deflector plates that simulate an even delivery across the entire cross section of the turbine being tested. So in short build a small wind tunnel to do lab testing...

To be fair to the Ugrinsky, I believe it was actually designed to be a "Smoll water wheel," with only half submerged at a time.
I haven't, yet, but I'd be curious to see what a Ugrinsky would do in a ducted enclosure.
I shall now buy a 3D printer and start a KRplus channel!

Link to the cited paper: www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/7/2478
Turbines:
Savonius - www.thingiverse.com/thing:5463425/files
Ugrinsky - www.thingiverse.com/thing:2238394
Pelton - www.thingiverse.com/thing:6141589/files

Beautifully made models. But this way of testing can tell us little more than that each turbine actually works. Was the dynamo connected to any consumer at all? Just measuring the open-circuit voltage only tells us how fast this specific dynamo spins in just this specific setup. It doesn't tell us anything about how much power the apparatus might be able to extract from the air and deliver in terms of watt if running with an electrical load.
That your source of wind should be closer to actual outdoor conditions has already been said. I might add that it should be somewhat defined and reproducible for a meaningful comparison of your different turbines.
I suggest you wire up some circuit that draws power from your turbine and enables you to measure it in watt or milliwatt. Feeding the output to some adjustable resistor and reading an amperemeter in addition to the voltmeter may do. I'd be curious to watch that!

Your wind testing would be greatly improved by testing these designs using laminar wind flow rather than a blow drier which has already a vortex like output which creates many interfering attributes. To create laminar flow you need to feed the blower through a tube structure of many smaller tubes inside one larger tube of about 6 to 12 inches in length.. This will produce a laminar wind flow that is mush closer to natural wind blowing. This can also be incorporated into the turbine design with a bit of engineering thought. Of course natural wind is already much more laminar so it can be directed into the turbine with mush less manipulation and added drag. If you want a reference for laminar flow devices study how they made the famous fountains at the Belagio Casino in Las Vegas. these can shoot long columns of laminar water flow using simple nozzles as I have described. Cheers and thanks for the work!

how about the current... fix a laad on in ..so we can see what it does in terms of power..

People have sad I'm full of hot air blowing. 😮😅

That’s not a good test. Put the flow to middle

nice try but sadly your test is just too flawed.
The weight is of course different as those designes had different bases, different sizes, different stability. And any power-reading is also sadly not comparable as the airstream is far too small and irregular. Windturbines operate in near uniform wind - getting blasted with air that has the same general velocity everywhere. Your test only has air coming from one specific spot at one specific angle, no pressure on the other side, and that from a not controlled outlet.

1. Make a wind tunnel that gives even air speed across the cross section, and ensures the whole turbine is subjected to the same wind. TBH your test attempt was worthless because your wind was cr*p!. You need a bigger more energetic fan as the air source to give representative wind velocities for the tests.
2. With the Ugrinsky, the design is optimised when there is a disk top and bottom spaced at about 1.5 diameters. This has important constraining effect on air flow and hence efficiency. I would imagine the others would be similar. So make then all 1.5 dia high, with disks either end. Good luck beating the Ugrinsky.
3. Free-wheeling RPM and Volts are useless measures without having some load on the turbines. Tip speed to wind speed ratios are informative. Measure the RPM at varying loads to find where the wind speed to load curve is optimised. A copper disk with a magnet (pushing on a spring balance) closer or farther away from the disk will give you a 'dynamometer' setup with load data output.
Keep up the interesting work!

Your test is MASSIVELY flawed. A hair drier ? Concentrated air flow on one side, does not account for drag on the other side of the blades.

Promo*SM

The test is stupid and completely wrong. You need a uniform flow and not a directed one. Measuring the voltage is irrelevant too because it is just a function of the speed of rotation. You have to measure POWER in a uniform flow field

Thank you for the effort pls make a turbine that can make 126 watts per hours and you will be a superstar