eBook: WIND ENERGY HANDBOOK

Windmill related topic
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bforex
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Feb 11, 2015 1:44 pm

eBook: WIND ENERGY HANDBOOK

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Lets Talk Green,

WIND ENERGY HANDBOOK


Tony Burton
Wind Energy Consultant, Carno, UK

David Sharpe
CREST, Loughborough University, UK

Nick Jenkins
UMIST, Manchester, UK

Ervin Bossanyi
Garrad Hassan & Partners, Bristol, UK




Windmills have been used for at least 3000 years, mainly for grinding grain or
pumping water, while in sailing ships the wind has been an essential source of
power for even longer. From as early as the thirteenth century, horizontal-axis
windmills were an integral part of the rural economy and only fell into disuse with
the advent of cheap fossil-fuelled engines and then the spread of rural electrification.
The use of windmills (or wind turbines) to generate electricity can be traced
back to the late nineteenth century with the 12 kW DC windmill generator
constructed by Brush in the USA and the research undertaken by LaCour in
Denmark. However, for much of the twentieth century there was little interest in
using wind energy other than for battery charging for remote dwellings and these
low-power systems were quickly replaced once access to the electricity grid became
available. One notable exception was the 1250 kW Smith–Putnam wind turbine
constructed in the USA in 1941. This remarkable machine had a steel rotor 53 m in
diameter, full-span pitch control and flapping blades to reduce loads. Although a
blade spar failed catastrophically in 1945, it remained the largest wind turbine
constructed for some 40 years (Putnam, 1948).

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Tony Burton, Chichester J.-Handbook of wind energy-Wiley (2001).pdf
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