Re: Would a wind turbine shaped like a cup anemometer produce greater power?

Hi Ian,

As a professional in the wind energy industry, I can say I've seen hundreds
of innovative designs for wind turbines. However, I am not an aeronautical
engineer or physicist, so cannot provide any more information on turbine
design than you would get from the Danish Wind Industry Association's
guided tour (http://www.windpower.org/en/tour.htm) or a wikipedia page for
that matter.

What I do know is that a cup anemometer style turbine would experience
little no no LIFT forces - lift forces are what puts the propellor style
HAWT turbines in a class of their own when it comes to efficiency.
A turbine shaped like a cup anemometer would be less aerodynamically
efficent, getting most of its energy from less efficient DRAG forces.

As I mentioned before, every year at wind conferences you see turbine
designs of all shapes and sizes, many claiming to be more efficient than
HAWT's. In the end, however, these designs usually dont live up to their
claims.  Still, every year new companies spring up with slightly different
ideas, hoping to succeed in this growing business.

Almost every commercial turbine in operation or being produced these days
is a three-bladed HAWT design. No significant sized turbine companies
produce any sort of VAWT design anymore. The only place you'll still see
them are as small models made exclusively for residential use.

I really can only speculate as to how your design would match up to a
darreius model, but if you search patent databases, I can almost guarantee
you'll find something similar to what you were thinking about - inventors
have been tinkering with VAWT designs for centuries!