1.1 Energy Production in General
1.1 Energy Production in General
1.1 Energy Production in General
Chapter1
INTRODUCTION
Bladeless energy has had a profound impact on the way our world has taken
form, from the first sailing ships that discovered new worlds to the bladeless
mills that were used to create dry lands in the Netherlands. With every new
era, an inventive way was found to make use of the energy contained in
bladeless . In this thesis, we will introduce an alternative method of
extracting this energy.
While bladeless energy is often viewed as an energy source on its own,
technically speaking, bladeless energy is mainly a form of solar energy,
because air flow is generated due to the uneven heating of the Earth’s
surface by the sun. About 1% of the solar energy reaching the earth is
transformed into bladeless energy. Due to the uneven heating of the
Earth’s surface, there are some locations that are more suitable for the
exploitation of bladeless energy, like at sea or oceans, on wide open plains
or along coastal lines.
In this chapter, firstly, we will start with a general outline of the energy
production in the world. After a quick review of the conventional methods
that are currently employed to utilise bladeless power, the theoretical
concepts of the new method will be explained and, finally, we will conclude
by stating the goals of this PhD research project.
1.1 Energy Production In General
Worldwide energy consumption is growing and as countries like China and
India are rapidly industrialising towards western standards, the demand for
energy will become even higher. Currently, as we can see in Figure 1.1, the
world primary energy demand at this moment is roughly 150000 TWh and
like that of Germany, have decided to shut down all nuclear reactors by
2020, see
Nuclear energy from fusion has a more positive image than its fission
counterpart, but it is still in an experimental phase and it is generally
thought that it will take at least a few decades before this technology is
commercially available.
1.2 Alternative Energy Sources
Considering the issues with the aforementioned sources of energy,
alternative means of energy production have been investigated. About 17%
of the global electricity production is generated through the use of
alternative energy sources, see [6]. Some examples of methods employing
renewable energy sources are:
- hydrogen/ethanol fuel cells,
- biomass energy
- photovoltaic solar cells
- hydro energy
- tidal energy
of which their share in the total world renewable energy usage, according to
the Renewable Energy Network Policy Network .
Most of these alternative methods of energy production are still only used
on a small scale basis. The independent economic viability of these
alternative renewable energy sources is low to non-existent and, therefore,
most of these methods need to be promoted through the use of subsidies and
tax incentives. Slowly, energy companies are trying to adopt a “greener”
image and have started to offer electricity generated through sustainable
means. The rates for this “green” electricity are usually equivalent to the
rates for electricity generated through conventional means, again promoted
by tax breaks.
Figure 1.8. An example of a Type B implementation of the VORTEX bladeless turbine system. Here, earth
acts as the collector. The charging bladeless turbine system itself is insulated from earth and as a
consequence, the dispersal of charged particles will result in the rise of the potential of the bladeless turbine
system. Again, a load can be attached to the charging bladeless turbine system.
Figure 1.4. Bladeless turbines in the middle of the Dutch farming landscape.
Their current efficiency is around 50% at their rated speeds, which means
they convert 50% of the available power associated with the bladeless
1.3.2 Drawbacks of bladeless turbines
So, while bladeless turbines still are the main devices to convert bladeless
energy to electrical energy, there are a number of drawbacks that limit the
widespread use of bladeless energy. The main drawback is the high cost of
maintenance. This need for maintenance arises primarily from the
conversion of bladeless energy to electrical energy via mechanical energy,
i.e. the rotational movement that drives the bladeless turbine. Especially
gear box driven bladeless turbines are prone to wear and tear and need to
be maintained on at least a yearly basis. Added to the cost of maintenance
are the costs for, amongst other things, construction, land lease and permits
which makes government subsidies a requisite to enabling bladeless energy
projects. Thus, at this point, the choice for the bladeless energy is a
political one.
Other drawbacks include the fact that conventional bladeless turbines are
bound to circular surface areas, because of the rotational movement. This
rotational movement is also the cause of noise and intermittent shadow
nuisance. Another often heard complaint is that these bladeless turbines are
responsible for what is called “visual pollution”, especially when large
bladeless turbine farms in rural settings are involved. A solution for this
problem is to build bladeless turbine farms at sea. This, of course,
introduces problems such as increased construction and maintenance costs.
1.3.3 Alternative Bladeless Energy Methods
There have been other developments in the field of alternative bladeless
energy conversion. One example is the so-called “ladder mill” which
consists of a series of kites moving in a rotating manner while driving a
generator.
Thus far, all of these developments are still in an experimental stage and
have not been yet proven commercially successful. Also, they all have the
common element that there are mechanically moving parts present in the
design, which will lead to wear and tear, similar to bladeless turbines.
1.3.4 Use of Bladeless Energy
As many countries have stated in their long-term energy goals that they
wish to increase their bladeless energy output, a question that often arises
when any form of alternative energy production is mentioned is whether it
can replace current energy production processes. With respect to bladeless
energy, it can be said that, due to its intermittent nature and the limited
means of energy storage in general, in the foreseeable future bladeless
energy will not be able to fully replace fossil and nuclear based energy
production.
Also, computational research using meteorological models as described in
[11] suggest that the local and global climate could be altered by the use of
large-scale use of bladeless energy, for example 1/10th of the global
electricity demand, by extracting kinetic energy and changing turbulent
transport in the atmospheric boundary layer.
As stated before, in all of the methods, that are used to convert bladeless
energy into electrical energy, some form of mechanical movement occurs,
which is the primary reason for maintenance and usually the primary cause
of failure. Therefore, a concept in which there is very little mechanical
movement would be ideal with respect to bladeless turbine system
complexity and maintenance costs.
The vortex method (Electrostatic Bladeless energy CONverter) is a method
which is based on the principle that the bladeless transports electrically
charged particles or charge carriers in an electric field. Without going into
great detail on how we will go about creating these charge carriers (this will
be discussed in chapter 3), for now, we will discuss the principles of the
vortex method and possible implementations into an actual bladeless turbine
system. In principle, any object, that can hold or store a charge, could be
used as charge carrier. At the end of this chapter, we will discuss in more
detail what this, in practice, will come down to.
It is important to mention that the concept of converting bladeless energy
into electrical energy by having the bladeless move charge carriers in an
electric field is not new. There have been several patents that propose a
similar idea, see for example however, most of these patents do not have an
energy efficient solution for creating charge carriers.
1.4.Principle: Work On Charge Carriers
When a force acts on a body that undergoes a displacement, that force does
work on the body. In the case of the vortex bladeless turbine system, the
body is a charged particle with a charge q and the force is the electric force
on the charged particle due to an electric field E, given by
Figure 1.7. An example of a Type A implementation of the VORTEX bladeless turbine system with an
insulated collector. The charged particles are created at the charging bladeless turbine system consisting of
nozzles and electrodes. The bladeless transports these particles to the collector. In previous experiments,
the distances between nozzle and collector were in the order of one to two metres. A load can be attached to
the collector.
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Chapter2
THEORETICAL BASIS AND MODELLING
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speed, vw,in which A is the active surface area perpendicular to the direction of the
bladeless flow and ρa is the air density. Not all this power can be used for the
conversion of bladeless power to other forms of power because this would imply
that the air flow would come to a complete stop just behind the converter.
This has been represented in Figure 2.1, where the original bladeless speed, vw as
stated in equation (2-1) is indicated as v1. The speed of the bladeless after it has
Figure 2.1. Illustration of the Betz limit. The bladeless speed behind the bladeless converter, v2, should
ideally be ⅓ of the speed before it enters the converter, v1, while the speed just in front of the converter is ⅔
of the initial bladeless speed.
By determining to what extent the bladeless would have to be slowed down by the
converter and by calculating what the final bladeless speed would be, Betz and
Lanchester both derived an expression for the maximum recoverable power, Pmax,
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This Rayleigh limit or the maximum charge, qmax, that can be present on a
droplet just before it breaks up, is given by
qmax 2π 2γ ⋅ ε 0 ⋅ d 3 (2-4)
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rated higher when it can convert more power from the same bladeless
surface area.
Furthermore, since liquid droplets are used as charge carriers, the liquid
flow rate, Q, also is an important parameter, which needs to be factored into
the EPI. Lastly, in the case that the efficiency ratio, the liquid flow rate and
the bladeless In order to compare the various implementations of the
vortex with the existing bladeless turbine technology and with each other,
we have to clearly define numbers that characterise the bladeless turbine
system performance. This number, which will be called the vortex
Performance Index (EPI), should include the efficiency ratio, ηVORTEX, of the
converted output power, Pout, and the sum of the input power, Σ Pin,where Σ
Pin consists of the maximum recoverable power in the bladeless , the
electrical power needed to charge the droplets and mechanical power to
pump the liquid to the desired height with the desired flow rate.
However, (2-21) does not completely represent the nature of the vortex
bladeless turbine system. First of all, since the maximum output power of
the vortex bladeless turbine system depends on the bladeless surface area,
A, it stands to reason that the performance of a particular implementation is
rated higher when it can convert more power from the same bladeless
surface area.
In order to compare the various implementations of the vortex with the
existing bladeless turbine technology and with each other, we have to
clearly define numbers that characterise the bladeless turbine system
performance. This number, which will be called the vortex Performance
Index (EPI), should include the efficiency ratio, ηVORTEX, of the converted
output power, Pout, and the sum of the input power, Σ Pin,where Σ Pin
consists of the maximum recoverable power in the bladeless , the electrical
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power needed to charge the droplets and mechanical power to pump the
liquid to the desired height with the desired flow rate.
However, (2-21) does not completely represent the nature of the vortex
bladeless turbine system. First of all, since the maximum output power of
the vortex bladeless turbine system depends on the bladeless surface area,
A, it stands to reason that the performance of a particular implementation is
rated higher when it can convert more power from the same bladeless
surface area.
2.4 Conclusions
We can conclude that from a theoretical point of view, the vortex principle
can be used to convert bladeless energy to electrical energy. The total
energy that can be converted depends on the bladeless speed, the number
of droplets, the amount of charge placed on these droplets and the strength
of the electric field. Simulations have shown that the work performed by
the bladeless on the droplets ultimately can lead to powers that are in the
same order of magnitude as the power associated with the bladeless .
We have found that for a range of droplet diameters (0.1- 100 μm), the
electric field should not be higher than 104-106 V/m, if realistic bladeless
speeds (up to 6 on the Beaufort scale) are expected to move the charged
droplets away.
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Chapter3
CHARGED DROPLET CREATION METHODS
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Firstly, in section 3.1, we will look at the other requirements for the
methods posed by the vortex bladeless turbine system, the first one still
being that the medium is a liquid. Subsequently, in section 3.2, we will look
at a number of charged droplet creation methods that have previously been
considered and we will discuss the reasons why these methods have not
been implemented in the vortex bladeless turbine system.In sections 3.3 and
3.4, we will discuss the two main contending charged droplet creation
methods. For each of these two methods, we will discuss the main working
principles, some of the conducted experiments and the results thereof and
3.1 Vortex Requirements On Droplet Creation
The efficient generation of charged droplets is probably the single most important
aspect of the vortex bladeless turbine system. Therefore, the choice of the spraying
method should be handled with extra consideration. The chosen spraying
method(s) should at least try to adhere to the following set of requirements, which
will then be explained per point in the following sections:
low energy consumption with respect to the energy in the bladeless
controllable charge, high current output
monodispersity of the liquid droplets
operable under bladeless y condition
environmentally friendly spraying liquid
3.1.1 Low Energy Consumption With Respect To The Energy In The
Bladeless
There are several methods available for creating charged droplets. Usually, these
methods require high electric fields and/or high pressure to operate. Some of these
methods require significant amounts of energy and this means that it would be
more difficult to achieve positive conversion efficiency. Of course, the usability of
a method depends on the prevailing bladeless speed at the site location and its
distribution and on how much energy other components in the vortex bladeless
turbine system need.
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2
For example, if we take bladeless through a surface area of 1 m with a speed of
10 m/s, then we know, by using equation (2-1), that the power associated with this
particular bladeless is 647 W. Knowing, with Betz in the back of our mind, that
roughly 60% of the power in the bladeless can be converted into electrical energy,
this means that we can extract 383 W at most. So, if a particular spraying method
would need e.g. 221 W to operate leaving 162 W as the net output, the maximum
conversion efficiency would be 25%. This does not even include other factors like
e.g. monitoring equipment or supplying the liquid to a certain height.
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we look at water droplets with a diameter of 5 μm that are sprayed from one
nozzle. If these water droplets can be charged to 70% of the maximum
charge given by the Rayleigh limit, then the current per nozzle can be
calculated based on the flow rate of the liquid. At 20 ml/hr, the rate of
charged droplets is 8.5·107 per second and this rate amounts to a current
through the nozzle of 4.7 μA per nozzle. If we have an electrical load of 20
GΩ, then this would imply an output power of roughly 0.5 W.
If we revisit the situation described in section 3.1.1, in which we wanted to
achieve a conversion efficiency of 25%, then this would imply that we
require 212 nozzles per m2 to produce the current required to feed the load.
Now, if we take droplets with a diameter of 15 μm, then the current drops to
0.9 μA per nozzle, which implies an output power of 17 mW. This would
come down to roughly 5500 spraying nozzles per m 2. In terms of liquid
consumption, this equals going from 4.2 litres per hour for the former
situation to 110 litres per hour for the latter situation.
3.1.3 Monodispersity
The production of monodisperse droplets means that droplets of only one
size are created. Together with the requirement described in the previous
section, we would have a droplet with one particular size and charge. This is
advantageous for the vorte
x bladeless turbine system for a number of reasons. First of all, as we have
seen in the previous chapter, the operation of the vortex bladeless turbine
system is greatly simplified.
Secondly, in monodisperse mode, the vortex behaves like a near-ideal
current generator, i.e. it can deliver a constant current to a load for any
working voltage up to a certain maximum voltage. The fact that all droplets
are created with equal size implies that they all have the same upper charge
limit related to the Rayleigh break-up principle. This means that the droplets
are all charged in the same manner, resulting in droplets with equal charge.
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In turn, this means that, on average, the force balance on each of the
charged droplets, as described in the previous chapter, would be the same.
Therefore, if one charged droplet can be moved against the electric field by
the bladeless , then all the droplets could be moved. Conversely, if one
charged droplet is attracted back to the vortex bladeless turbine system,
because e.g. the bladeless speed has dropped or the vortex bladeless
turbine system potential has increased, all the droplets would be attracted.
And thus, the output current would drop to zero at that potential. This does
not take into account space charge effects, which causes charged droplets
closer to the vortex bladeless turbine system to be pushed back by droplets
that have been dispersed earlier.
In practice, there will always be a range of droplet sizes and, therefore,
monodispersity as explained in the first paragraph will usually not occur. In
aerosol science, a droplet distribution is defined as monodisperse when the
geometric standard deviation σg or GSD of the droplet size distribution is
smaller than 1.2, see e.g.,
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The main drawback of this atomisation method is the fact that it is based on
rotational movement and, hence, susceptible to wear and tear. This, of
course, is the very reason why the concept of the vortex bladeless turbine
system was introduced in the first place. Consequently, maintenance costs
(together with purchase costs) of this type of atomiser are relatively high.
Other drawbacks include the lack of monodispersity of the droplets.
3.3 Electrohydrodynamic atomisation
Electrohydrodynamic atomisation, EHDA or electrospray, is a spraying and
charging method which is e.g. used for coating purposes or medicine
administering. Its main advantage is that very little energy is required for the
creation of charged droplets.
3.3.1 EHDA Principle
The EHDA spraying method is based on the principle that a strong electric field
will deform the meniscus of the liquid leaving a spraying nozzle to a conical shape,
i.e. the electric Coulomb force will interact with the surface tension of the liquid.
Ions in the liquid will accelerate towards the cone apex and, due to this movement,
the liquid itself is accelerated. At the cone apex, a liquid jet occurs which breaks up
into droplets with a high charge density. Depending on the direction of the applied
electric field, the net charge on the droplets will either be positive or negative.
Usually, this electric field will be created using charging electrodes.
The droplet diameter, charge and initial velocity as well as the rate at which the
charged droplets are ejected from the nozzle, all depend on the potential of the
charging electrodes, the geometrical configuration of these electrodes and the
properties and the flow rate of the spraying liquid.
Using EHDA, it is possible to spray droplets in different spraying modes,
depending on the flow rate of the liquid and the shape and strength of the local
electric field. The spraying modes of EHDA are separated into two general
categories: modes that exhibit a continuous flow of liquid through the meniscus
and modes that do not. The former consists of the simple-jet, the cone-jet and the
ramified-jet, while the latter consists of the dripping, the micro dripping, the
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spindle and the intermittent cone-jet modes. The latter are often referred to as
pulsating modes.
One of these continuous spraying modes is the cone-jet mode or Taylor cone mode,
see Figure 3.1, and one of its main advantages is the fact that droplets are highly
charged up to 70% of the maximum charge given by the Rayleigh limit, see . Also,
the droplet distribution in this cone-jet mode can be monodisperse.
One drawback of EHDA, however, is that in order to spray in the cone-jet
mode, the surface tension of the used spraying liquid should be relatively
low. Using a conventional EHDA spraying set-up with demineralised water,
continuous cone-jet spraying does not occur due to the high surface tension
of water (72·10-3 N/m); In order to actually achieve any spraying of
charged water droplets, the electric field has to be increased to such a level,
that it leads to a very unstable spray without monodisperse droplets. Part of
this instability is caused by the fact that the charged water droplets reduce
the electric field at the nozzle, thereby cancelling the cone-jet spraying as it
has started. These charge relaxation times are usually in the order of 100
ms. This does not occur with ethanol, because, firstly, the electric field is
not required to be as high as with water and secondly, the charged ethanol
droplets have less charge on it than charged water droplets.
Also, in order to achieve such a high electric field, the charging electrodes
have to be set on such a high potential that corona discharges start to occur.
Ethanol e.g., on the other hand, has a much lower surface tension (22·10 -3
N/m) and spraying in the cone-jet mode is easily achieved.
Liquid conductivity also plays a role in the feasibility of spraying in the
cone-jet mode. According to Cloupeau the flow rate at which cone-jet mode
can be achieved decreases with increasing conductivity. A lower flow rate,
however, could mean that a smaller number of charged droplets would be
produced per time unit. Therefore, the advantage of spraying in cone-jet
mode, i.e. higher charge per droplet, should outweigh the lower rate of
produced droplets.
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In practice, when using water, electrospraying will occur in one of the other
aforementioned spraying modes of EHDA, each with their own
characteristics. However, none of these spraying modes spray monodisperse
droplets, meaning that we have to take into account that the droplet
diameters willfollow a distribution. Also, none of these modes produce
droplets that are charged as high as the droplets in the cone-jet mode.
3.3.2 Analytical model: EHDA
Several models exist for describing the EHDA spraying process. Using
these models, it is possible to give an estimation of the droplet size and
current output produced by the charged droplets as a function of the flow
rate and/or the applied electric field. The model used in this research has
been developed for the previously mentioned cone-jet mode and, therefore,
it is only indicative for the other modes of spraying. Also, this model does
not take directly into account the electric field. It assumes that the electric
field has enabled cone-jet spraying and then it calculates the droplet size and
charge.
The model, however, still can be used to gain a better understanding about
how parameters like flow rate, surface tension, conductivity and
(absolute/dynamic) viscosity affect the spraying process. We will not cover
this model in detail, but we will state the important conclusions needed to
effectively analyse and, ultimately, use EHDA spraying for the vortex
bladeless turbine system.
Gañán-Calvo found that the relations for the droplet size and current differ
significantly depending on the aforementioned parameters, especially
between highly conductive viscous liquids and liquids with a low viscosity
and conductivity. Therefore, a viscosity number, VN, was introduced to
determine which relation was valid for a given spraying liquid in the cone-
jet mode
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Figure 3.1. The droplet diameter distribution as measured by a Laser Phase-Doppler set-up with
water/ethanol. The GSD of this distribution is 2.0.
In Figure 3.7, the droplet diameter distribution is given for the Delrin single
nozzle bladeless turbine system spraying demineralised water mixed with
ethanol using a flow rate of 20 ml/hr. Now, the GSD was calculated to be
2.0. Again, this means that the droplet is not considered monodisperse.
During these same experiments, the velocities were also measured in the
directions as specified in Figure 3.8. The velocities in the x-direction were
found to be varying between 1 and -1 m/s. In the z-direction, the velocities
were found to be varying between 1 and 5 m/s.
3.4 High Pressure Monodisperse Spraying
The second method of charged droplet creation that has been investigated is
the method called high pressure monodisperse spraying (HPMS). This
method is based on the principle that a liquid is forced through a device
fitted with small micron-sized pores with equal size creating liquid jets with
equal diameter. The high pressure that is applied is usually in the order of
10 to 15 MPa. The liquid jets break up into droplets due to the Rayleigh
break-up principle, with the diameter of the droplet proportional to the
diameter of the liquid jet.
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This droplet creating method has primarily been developed for continuous
inkjet printing and, as such, was designed to operate with all kinds of
liquids, including saline water. Based on the preceding section covering the
EHDA spraying method, we have concluded that the creation of nearly
monodisperse droplets with water is possible, but requires a more complex
spraying bladeless turbine system. Only ethanol will result in actual
monodisperse droplets. Therefore, with HPMS, there is already a significant
advantage of this method over the EHDA method, because the intended
spraying liquid is water.
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Chapter4
VORTEX BLADELESS TURBINE DESIGN
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In section 4.2, we will test the vortex design with EHDA and HPMS in a
bladeless environment in order to determine whether the bladeless is able
to move the charged droplets away. We will also investigate whether the
polarity of the charged droplets affects this transportation process.
The next issue is the increase of the produced current. In the ideal case, the
vortex bladeless turbine system is expected to convert all of the Betz-
limited power in the bladeless . Because the vortex bladeless turbine
system acts as a current source, ideally, we want the vortex bladeless
turbine system to be able to deliver a current that is matched to the power in
the bladeless . This required current will have to be significantly higher
than the current produced by a single spraying nozzle bladeless turbine
system, regardless of the charging method. Therefore, in the actual vortex
bladeless turbine system, multiple spraying nozzles need to be combined in
order to increase the rate of production of charged droplets and, thus
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We will describe how this will affect the behaviour of the charged droplets
compared to the considerations made in chapter 2 and 3.
We will conclude with the final laboratory designs for the vortex bladeless
turbine system, which will be described in section 4.6. Using these designs,
a number of experimental set-ups were constructed, which were then used
for experiments and measurements. These will be discussed in the next
chapter.
4.1 General Design
In Figure 4.1, we again take a look at the schematic overview of a Type B
implementation, i.e. the vortex bladeless turbine system without a separate
charge collector unit. The first thing that is apparent is that we need a
platform that is isolated from earth. Basically, all the components on this
platform will have their common earth point at this platform. Using
switches, the platform can either be connected directly to earth or to an
electrical load. In this chapter, we will look at the charge droplet
transportation while the vortex bladeless turbine system is still connected to
earth, i.e. in the case that the bladeless moves away the charged droplets,
the platform and, thus, the vortex bladeless turbine system will not be
charged.
Also, not explicitly mentioned before, the liquid has to be fed to the
spraying nozzles, thus requiring some form of reservoir and a method of
transportation of the liquid.
Lastly, the electrical devices, required to supply the high voltage and the
liquid, need to be powered. Considering the fact that the charging bladeless
turbine system on the platform is isolated from earth, a self-sufficient
solution needs to be found for the power supply.
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Figure 4.1. Schematic overview of a Type B VORTEX implementation. A reservoir supplies the spraying
liquid to the isolated charging bladeless turbine system, where charged droplets are produced. The
bladeless carries the charged droplets away, thereby increasing the potential of the VORTEX bladeless
turbine system.
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on a set of insulators was used as the basis for the charging bladeless turbine
system. This plate was sufficiently large to hold all the necessary
components.
Figure 4.2. The capacitance of the platform, a metal plate (green), to the earth has been calculated by
LORENTZ. The grey area represents earth or, in this case, the floor above which the platform floats.
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d
P m ⋅h⋅g (4-4)
pump dt
in which dm/dt is the mass flow rate of the liquid and g is the gravity
acceleration. As an example, we use water as the spraying liquid and this
water needs to be pumped to a height, h, of 10 metres at a flow rate of 400
litres per hour. In that case, the minimum required pumping power will be
11 W, which is roughly one percent of the rated power. We also have to
keep in mind that equation (4-4) only holds when the pump has a
(theoretical) efficiency of a 100%. Currently, the maximum efficiency of
water pumps is roughly 90% which means that the required power will
actually be 12 W.
However, if the charging and spraying efficiency is lower and the output
power per nozzle is, for example, 5 mW or 0.5 mW at the same flow rate,
then the minimum required pumping power would be 121 W or 1.2 kW
respectively. In the latter case, it is clear that the vortex will not be able to
convert bladeless power to electrical power with a positive efficiency.
Therefore, in order for the vortex to be self-sustaining, the chosen charging
process needs to be optimised to the extent that the power associated with
the required amount of spraying liquid is lower than the output power of the
vortex bladeless turbine system. Another possibility is to use liquid that has
reached the required height due to other processes, e.g. precipitation. We
will touch upon this subject in chapter 6 on recommendations.
In our experimental set-up, however, we have chosen to use a syringe pump
that can supply liquid to spraying nozzles in either an EHDA or an HPMS
based charging bladeless turbine system. In this way, for research purposes,
the liquid supply can be accurately established to the desired flow rate.
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then no charged droplets will come in contact with any of the electrodes
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droplets away from the charging bladeless turbine system. The current
associated with the droplets that are moved away will be called the
displaced current. Firstly, the bladeless generator will be described, after
which the results of the implementations of both spraying methods,
discussed in chapter 3, will be discussed.
In chapter 3, the various implementations of both charging methods were
analysed in terms of produced currents associated with the charged droplets
and, in the ideal case, all of these charged droplets will be moved away by
the bladeless . If this is the case,
or the metal platform and, thus, no currents will be measured flowing back
from the electrodes to the high voltage power supply.
If any of the charged droplets are attracted back to e.g. the charging
electrode, then a flow-back current will be measured. Comparing these
flow-back currents with the produced currents will then give an indication
of the effectiveness of the bladeless to overcome the electric field.
4.2.1 Bladeless Generator
The air flow in this research has been provided by a bladeless generator, as
shown in Figure 4.3, which basically consists of a fan that forces the air
through a bladeless turbine system of small tubes. In this way, a laminar
flow of air is obtained, which means that the bladeless speed at each of the
spraying nozzles is roughly equal.
The bladeless speeds could be varied from 2 to 14 m/s (2 to 7 on the scale
of Beaufort) for a circular bladeless surface area with a diameter of 35 cm.
During the testing of the implementations discussed in chapter 3, the
bladeless speed was first set at 10 m/s and then increased to 12 m/s.
In the early stages of the research project, a smaller and less powerful
bladeless turbine was available with a maximum bladeless speed of 8 m/s.
Therefore, the experiments concerning the Delrin nozzle in this chapter and
chapter 5 have been conducted with 6 and 8 m/s.
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Figure 4.3. The bladeless generator which has been used to provide laminar air flow to move the charged
droplets away from the charging bladeless turbine system.
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The experiments that will be discussed in this section are to determine the
suitability of different concepts for up scaling droplet production in the
vortex bladeless turbine system:
• EHDA: Multi-needle bladeless turbine systems
• EHDA: Self-adjusting wire spraying bladeless turbine system
• HPMS: Multi-chip bladeless turbine system
4.3.1 EHDA: Multi-Needle Bladeless turbine systems
The single nozzle version of the EHDA bladeless turbine system was of the
Delrin type and in order to obtain a multi-nozzle version of this bladeless
turbine system, a number of these casings would have to be placed next to
each other. However, due to the size of each casing, a diameter of 3 cm,
there would be room for only a limited number of Delrin nozzles in a small
space.
Another strategy to designing a multi-nozzle bladeless turbine system is to
take only the spraying needles and place these in a grid. This could be
achieved in numerous ways and in Figure 4.5 we have depicted one possible
configuration in which the number of nozzles was expanded in one
dimension.
4.4 Lowering required bladeless speed by field grading
In this section, we will investigate whether it is possible to grade the electric
field in such a way, that the minimum required bladeless speed for
effective VORTEX operation can be lowered, while still maintaining the
charged droplet creation process. To this end, the electric field is analysed
and the droplet trajectories are calculated at different bladeless speeds.
Subsequently, the electric field will be modified using one or more extra
electrodes, after which the droplet trajectories will be plotted again.
As an example, we will look at a charging bladeless turbine system that
consists of the ring electrode with needle nozzle set-up used for the EHDA
spraying. For HPMS at this moment, there is no need to lower the minimum
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required bladeless speed, because of the high exit velocities of the charged
droplets.
4.4.1 Analysis of droplet trajectories
In Figure 4.16, the trajectories of droplets have been plotted as function of
the bladeless speed, which is directed in the positive Y-direction and
varied from 6 to 10 m/s. The needle nozzle is set at 0.0 kV, representing the
fact that vortex bladeless turbine system is connected to earth, and the ring
electrode is set at -4.0 kV. As we can see, the droplet escapes the charging
bladeless turbine system only when the bladeless speed is 9 m/s orhigher.
Also, we can see that at 8 m/s, the bladeless manages to move the droplet,
but still has insufficient time to accelerate the droplet to its terminal escape
velocity.
Figure 4.16. The trajectories of droplets are plotted as a function of the bladeless speed. The ring electrode
is set at -4.0 kV and the needle is set at 0 kV. The bladeless speeds in this plot vary from 6 to 10 m/s. The
droplet is moved away completely, only when the bladeless speed is 9 m/s or higher.
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4.6.1 Conclusions
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Chapter5
TESTING OF THE COMPLETE VORTEX BLADELESS
TURBINE SYSTEM
In the previous chapters, the separate parts of the vortex bladeless turbine
system, e.g. the charging bladeless turbine system, the liquid supply
bladeless turbine system and the holding platform and its insulation have all
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Using the EHDA method for charged droplet creation with water
or water/ethanol mixtures, the charging or displaced current
should decrease gradually as a function of the vortex bladeless
turbine system potential.
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explain in what way the various types of currents and potentials were
measured.
In the sections 5.2, 5.3 and 5.4, the experiments are described that were
performed using different spraying methods. Some of the results of earlier
measurements will be briefly stated, so that the results can be compared to
results of more recent experiments. In section 5.5, we will analyse the
results of the experiments and determine the efficiencies of the various
configurations and in 5.6 we will summarise the conclusions.
In section 5.7, we will conclude this chapter with some considerations on up
scaling of the VORTEX.
5.1 Experimental Method
In order to determine whether the vortex bladeless turbine system could be
charged, the following steps were taken. Firstly, the bladeless turbine
generator as described in chapter 4 was switched on and set to the desired
bladeless speed. Secondly, the spraying and charging of the droplets was
activated, in a similar way as described in chapters 3 and 4, depending on
the used spraying bladeless turbine system.
During this spraying phase, the holding platform of the vortex bladeless
turbine system was still connected to earth. At this point, the optimal
settings for the potentials on the charging and possibly steering electrodes,
which were found during the testing described in chapter 4, were used. This
also means that for different charging bladeless turbine systems, e.g. the
single nozzle/ring electrode bladeless turbine system or the multi-nozzle/rod
electrodes bladeless turbine system, different potentials will be used.
Therefore, it can be assumed that, in the next sections, the specified
potentials are the ones that produce the highest net charging current.
In the next phase, the holding platform was disconnected from earth, thus
allowing the vortex bladeless turbine system to charge like a capacitor.
During this charging process, the vortex bladeless turbine system potential
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zero. In other words, this means that the load of 20.5 GΩ is too low
compared to the internal impedance of the vortex bladeless turbine system.
This effect has been noticed and tested for all EHDA based configurations
with water, water/ethanol and pure ethanol as the spraying liquid. Therefore,
from this point onwards, all the discussed results will only concern the
experiments in which positively charged droplets were created and sprayed.
5.3 Vortex With Multiple Nozzle EHDA Spraying Bladeless
turbine systems
In this section, we will discuss the experiments performed with the vortex
bladeless turbine system employing various spraying bladeless turbine systems in
which multiple spraying nozzles are present. In section 5.3.1, we will start with the
multi-nozzle bladeless turbine systems in which the charging electrodes are either
rod electrodes or rounded ring electrodes as described in section 4.3.1.
Also described in section 4.3.1, is the multiple needle nozzle bladeless turbine
system with the cylindrical electrode configuration, of which the experimental
results will be discussed in section 5.3.2. Finally, in section 5.3.3, the results of the
final version of the self-adjusting nozzles configuration will be discussed. Another
example, which we will explore more in detail, is a charging bladeless
turbine system that uses the multi-nozzle spraying bladeless turbine system
described in section 4.3.1. In Figure 4.17, a five nozzle bladeless turbine
system with two metal rods as the charging electrodes has been depicted.
Another component that is visible in the right lower corner of Figure 4.17 is
a metal plate representing the platform as described in section 4.1.1. The
orientation and placement of the platform depends on the actual
implementation of a particular vortex bladeless turbine system.
The bladeless speed is set at 6 m/s and pointed in the positive Y-direction.
The two rod electrodes are set at -4.0 kV and the nozzles and the platform
are set at 0.0 kV, since they are electrically connected. For this simulation,
trajectories of multiple droplets have been plotted
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During all the experiments discussed in this chapter, the vortex bladeless
turbine system itself was grounded while the charged droplets were sprayed
and moved away by the bladeless . However, as soon as the vortex
bladeless turbine system is disconnected from earth, it will charge up to a
certain potential. As discussed in 4.1.3, the electric field in the vicinity of
the spraying bladeless turbine system remains constant during the charging
process, because the potentials of the charging and steering electrodes will
rise correspondingly. Therefore, the spraying process, either based on
EHDA or HPMS, will remain undisturbed and the creation of charged
droplets will continue.
This does not mean, however, that the electric forces acting on the droplets
will remain constant. As the potential of the vortex bladeless turbine system
rises, the attractive force back to the bladeless turbine system is increased
and at a certain point, the droplets will return to bladeless turbine system.
This means that the flow-back current increases and that the charging rate of
the vortex bladeless turbine system decreases. Therefore, in the next
chapter, in which we will conduct the charging experiments, we expect to
observe the charging current to decrease while the charging potential will
reach a maximum.
The behaviour still depends on the charging and spraying method, or more
specifically, the size and charge distribution of the droplets. In 3.1.3, we
briefly touched on the subject of monodispersity in that it implied that the
force balance on the monodisperse droplets would be the same. It also
means that, theoretically, at a certain potential, all the charged droplets
would be attracted back to the bladeless turbine system, thereby instantly
reducing the current to zero. We expect this for the HPMS configuration.
Since EHDA does not provide monodisperse spraying for water and
water/ethanol, we expect the charged droplets with a higher electrical
mobility to be attracted back sooner than the charged droplets with a lower
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Chapter6
CONCLUSIONS
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Firstly, in section 6.1, we will recap the conclusions for each chapter, after
which a number of general conclusions will be drawn with regard to the
practical feasibility of the vortex concept.
Lastly, in section 6.2, we will give some recommendations on future work
and steps that need to be undertaken in order to solve crucial scientific
obstacles and thus increase the commercial viability of an industrial
implementation of the vortex concept.
6.1 Conclusions
6.1.1 Conclusions per chapter
In chapter 1, we concluded that the Type B implementation of the vortex
concept, i.e. the implementation with a charging bladeless turbine system
isolated from earth without a collector unit, is best suited for commercial
exploitation. The fact that no separate collector unit is needed means that
product costs are lower. Also, the bladeless only has to move the charged
droplets to earth instead of towards a certain fixed point. Otherwise, this
would require a relatively large unit to take in all the droplets or bladeless
-direction following bladeless turbine system.
In chapter 2, we concluded, from a theoretical point of view using an
analytical model with a small number of charged droplets, that it is possible
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The main advantage of EHDA is that it requires little input power compared
to the other methods available. However, while the results of using water as
the spraying liquid have improved significantly during the course of this
thesis work, it still has not been possible to make full use of the other main
advantage of EHDA, namely the production of highly charged
monodisperse droplets.
The second method is high pressure monodisperse spraying (HPMS). The
main advantage of HPMS is that it is possible to use (saline) water as the
spraying liquid, which is positive with respect to availability and
environmental issues. The second advantage is the fact that the droplets
produced by HPMS are monodisperse, which facilitates the optimisation of
the vortex bladeless turbine system. However, the required power is higher
compared to the EHDA method, because a high pressure is needed to create
the droplets.
In chapter 4, we concluded that it was possible to design the vortex
bladeless turbine system in such a way, that the charged droplets were
actually removed by the bladeless , thus creating a charging current. Using
both EHDA and HPMS methods, several multiple-nozzle spraying bladeless
turbine systems were constructed and tested, both showing varying degrees
of linearity with respect to the output current.
In chapter 5, we concluded that the transportation of the charged droplets by
the bladeless resulted in an output current that could charge the vortex
bladeless turbine system up to a potential, depending on the bladeless
speed and the charging current. It was possible to connect the vortex to an
electrical load which resulted in an output power. As expected, this output
power increased with the bladeless speed.
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REFERENCES
[1] Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear
Safety, “Environmental Policy – Nuclear Safety – Report under the
Convention on Nuclear Safety by the Government of the Federal
Republic of Germany”, Public Relations Division, pp.1-5, September
2001
[2] International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2006, pp.265,
2006
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