Windrunner

[Sparweb]

Check out this behemoth.

WindRunner | Radia

Delivering the largest, most efficient wind turbines directly to the wind farm.

radia.com

It's a "point design" with one clearly stated purpose: to transport wind turbine blades wherever needed.
Has about 7x the enclosed volume of an Antonov 124.
This one ambitious.

Won't it be cheaper to design WT blades to be assembled from 2 or 3 sections in the field?
The only problem this aircraft is meant to solve is delivering long (>100m) WT blades to remote sites.
If trucking is such a problem, then use the solution that's already in use for cranes: split-em in two.
I thought of this immediately as I looked at the marketing photo that shows such a crane in the background.

 

[rb1957]

? what has a $2 plastic toy got to do with this ? Who mocked this toy idea ? I suspect the people selling googles loved it !?

The idea of a huge plane to transport large turbine blades IMHO deserves mocking as it at best partially solves the problem it is addressing.
The obvious solution is transportation joints (with the hassles they bring with them) or dirigible airship.
Why are extra long blades the way to go ? Yes, I know about aerodynamic efficiency, but extra length brings extra cost (like designing a system to deliver the blades to the site). Why are all turbine 3 bladed ? I suspect someone did a design study and concluded that 3 is the right number, but it is right only within the parameters of the study.

 

[GregLocock]

"Why are all turbine 3 bladed ?" Worth googling to see a lot of bad physics and hand waving!

 

[Lou Scannon]

I read something about a compromise between disk solidity and harmonics with the tower (e.g. vs 4 blades).

 

[verymadmac]

Why are all turbine 3 bladed ? I suspect someone did a design study and concluded that 3 is the right number, but it is right only within the parameters of the study.

Last time I discussed this with a wind turbine manufactures Chief Engineer, the comment was that the biggest appeal of 3 blades is that they were visually more appealing than 2 blades (he was in the process of building the first article of a 2 bladed wind turbine program).

 

[rb1957]

wow ! nothing about blade efficiency or dynamic stability ... huh ! I've only seen 2 blades on very small turbines.

more blades would make an alternative to longer blades ... with some advantages and some disadvantages.

 

[verymadmac]

wow ! nothing about blade efficiency or dynamic stability ... huh ! I've only seen 2 blades on very small turbines.

more blades would make an alternative to longer blades ... with some advantages and some disadvantages.

It was a 33m diameter windturbine (timber laminate blades), the blades where more like a 2 bladed helicopter rotor than a normal propeller. They had a bit of a learning curve with the first unit when a gust / controller configuration issue cause the whole thing to be almost pulled off the top of the tower (I seem to recall it being described as a stopped with the blades horizontal and feathered).