Date of Submission

Spring 2015

Academic Programs and Concentrations

Physics

Project Advisor 1

Matthew Deady

Abstract/Artist's Statement

Wind power is one of the most appealing short-term solutions to the ever-growing energy crisis, seeing as much of the infrastructure for this technology is already in place. This enterprise currently places an emphasis on horizontal-axis wind turbines, but are they really the most efficient kind? Certain aspects of vertical-axis turbine design show promise over the traditional horizontal design, however, this technology has not been explored nearly enough to know if it is viable for commercial use. In this project I designed and constructed a prototype wind turbine of the vertical design. I tested the efficiency of the design for converting wind energy into electrical power. The results for these tests are presented in the thesis, and the lessons learned through the investigation, concerning what works and what does not, will hopefully provide insight for future improvements of vertical-axis wind turbine technology.

Open Access Agreement

On-Campus only

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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