Mechanical Engineering blog

Because I'm interested in becoming a mechanical engineer one day, I believe it is a good idea to write about technologies being developed in today's world. One new technology that I am very interested in is a new design for an offshore wind turbine that can retract it's rotor blades during fast winds and hurricanes.

This new technology is being developed by the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science, and is proposed as a turbine that can react to weather similar to a palm tree such that it can re-position it's rotor blades to avoid catastrophic damage, making this technology feasible for use off-shore the United States. This technology is planned to be capable of producing fifty megawatts per unit, utilizing rotor blades that two football fields long. Creating such large rotor blades and attaching them to the standard ocean turbine would not be feasible. However, the new design for the rotor blades would be much more light-weight, making the design possible for use. If this technology can surpass the obstacles that beset it, then wind turbines can be placed along the coast of the U.S. without fear of these turbines being destroyed by powerful sea storms, and effectively turning the U.S. into the leader of wind energy production.

Not only will this technology be significantly more effective at producing energy than current turbine models, it will also potentially be a more economically viable option in the long run. With these giant turbines producing gigantic amounts of energy, many homes along the coasts of the U.S. will be powered. Additionally, because the design of this new turbine prevents destruction by severe weather, companies will likely not be turned away for fear of having to spend too much money on repairs or replacing destroyed units.

The research team is headed by Professor Eric Loth (pictured), chair of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Researchers on this team also have affiliations with the University of Illinois, The University of Colorado, the Colorado School of Mines, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories. 

I think that this technology has the ability to revolutionize the renewable energy industry. It would be interesting to see a world that is more reliant upon renewable energy as opposed to energy derived from fossil fuels. However I also believe that there are many obstacles that the research team will have to over come first in order to bring their dream to fruition. For example: how to re-create the frame for the turbine so that it can support the massive rotor blades. I am also interested to see how they will handle the operation of the retractable rotor blades; whether this function is autonomous or whether it requires manual operation. I am also curious as to how costly it will be to design and manufacture the parts for the turbine and how much it will cost to set up. I am also curious as to how the power will be distributed. How many homes could a single turbine realistically power given that wind patterns are not constant? I am also curious as to how this technology will be received on the market as well as how the general population views this new technology.

Aside from my concerns, I'm curious about what possibilities this new technology could create for other technologies and research teams, particularly in the field of renewable energy. Many inventions of the past have incorporated aspects of natural function into their design which inspires me to think about how future inventors will use aspects of nature in order to create an efficient technology. It is also quite exciting to think about how many people could benefit from this new turbine and, for that matter, other technologies with similar aspirations. It is also very interesting to think about how this technology could be improved so that it's power generation could be increased or how they could potentially make the turbine more compact over time.

I believe that this technology can be groundbreaking. If they can get it to work on the large scale, then this technology can greatly benefit many people in the United States as well as benefit other people in other countries. For now, however, the technology has yet to be developed.    


Information retrieved from: https://news.virginia.edu/content/palm-trees-inspire-uva-teams-revolutionary-design-offshore-wind-turbines