Project Summary
The Mamikon Spinner
Todd Mills, Principal
Investigator
Grant
03-26
CONCEPT: The Mamikon Spinner is an innovative and promising new design concept that investigators believe will advance the energy technology of wind blades for Small Wind Turbines by increasing wind energy production. The invention may be valid as a fundamentally new blade that is more efficient than standard blades.
GOAL: To determine the feasibility of using the design of the Mamikon Spinner as an innovative approach to blade design for Small Wind Turbines. It is believed that the Spinner may be a more efficient, stronger, and quieter design than conventional wind blades.
During this stage of development the objective is to scientifically validate the invention by building prototypes of the blade, and to analyze the performance of this blade in a wind tunnel to measure torque, rpm, and thrust through experimentation and accepted engineering analysis. Our technical consultants will be using Unigraphics Aero Cad, and CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) to test and gather data. The tunnel data results will be analyzed and compared with standard blades used on wind turbines using baseline data provided by DAR and Dr. Wetzel.
In addition to testing the energy efficiency of the invention, the investigators seek to determine the economic advantage of the device, based on costs savings for manufacturing a smaller diameter blade (The Spinner) with a lower cost tower, rotor, and other subsystems.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION: The invention, the Mamikon Spinner, received its US Patent (# US 6,364,614 B1) on February 25, 2003. The Spinner is a wind blade comprised of an elongated strip (whose proportions preferably exceed 6:1) of a thin, rigid or flexible material, whose one end is twisted three times and attached to the other end, to form a symmetric Athreefold,@ three-dimensional shape with radial symmetry and open hub. The blade turns on a horizontal or vertical axis. (See Appendixes 1 - 5)
An important feature of this invention is its ability to spin under the slightest flow of air. As described in the patent: AThe Spinner, if left to fall, will spin naturally to the ground keeping its plane of symmetry horizontal.@ The device moves well in low wind conditions and, as such, may have advantages as an efficient, slower turning mill.
Initial investigation of the Spinner with a Test-of-Principal Model and Theoretical Modeling by Cal Tech Professor Mamikon Mnatsakanian, suggests that the Spinner has advantages over conventional blades because the unique air-flow design may generate less Atip loss@ and air turbulence common to standard wind turbine blades.
Because the invention is a continuous strip and not blades, it may also leverage potential energy in a novel way.