Flippers of humpback whale inspiration for wind turbine
- added June 25, 2008
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- JanforGore
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West Chester University professor has developed a new wind turbine that draws inspiration from a blubbery source: the flippers of a humpback whale.
Those knobby flippers were long considered one of the oddities of the sea, found on no other earthly creature.
But after years of study, starting with a whale that washed up on a New Jersey beach, Frank Fish thinks he knows their secret. The bumps cause water to flow over the flippers more smoothly, giving the giant mammal the ability to swim tight circles around its prey.
What works in the ocean seems to work in air. Already a flipperlike prototype is generating energy on Canada's Prince Edward Island, with twin, bumpy-edged blades knifing through the air. And this summer, an industrial fan company plans to roll out its own whale-inspired model - moving the same amount of air with half the usual number of blades and thus a smaller, energy-saving motor.
Some scientists were sceptical at first, but the concept now has gotten support from independent researchers, most recently some Harvard engineers who wrote up their findings in the respected journal Physical Review Letters.
"There's definitely something going on with these bumps," said Ernst A van Nierop, the paper's lead author.
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Great story. The kind that gives you hope for new innovations that will bring us into the future.
Those knobby flippers were long considered one of the oddities of the sea, found on no other earthly creature.
But after years of study, starting with a whale that washed up on a New Jersey beach, Frank Fish thinks he knows their secret. The bumps cause water to flow over the flippers more smoothly, giving the giant mammal the ability to swim tight circles around its prey.
What works in the ocean seems to work in air. Already a flipperlike prototype is generating energy on Canada's Prince Edward Island, with twin, bumpy-edged blades knifing through the air. And this summer, an industrial fan company plans to roll out its own whale-inspired model - moving the same amount of air with half the usual number of blades and thus a smaller, energy-saving motor.
Some scientists were sceptical at first, but the concept now has gotten support from independent researchers, most recently some Harvard engineers who wrote up their findings in the respected journal Physical Review Letters.
"There's definitely something going on with these bumps," said Ernst A van Nierop, the paper's lead author.
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Great story. The kind that gives you hope for new innovations that will bring us into the future.
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- JanforGore
- 3 months ago
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Copy nature, that sure seems to be working for everything else....
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- anarchy_angel31207
- 3 months ago
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Now thats great utilization of whales. Much better than hunting them.
All the engineering answers we need seem to be in nature. -
There is a reason for almost everything in nature. We always seem to learn more when a species is studied closely. I love this idea. It is a step in the right direction.
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