Wind Turbine

The wind turbine was a project that included several physics components that we learned over the year.

-In order to understand how the wind turbine worked, we needed to know Newton’s Laws. These were found on the website “Newton’s Three Laws of Motion”.

http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/newton3laws.html

1. “Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.” After the wind discontinues, the fan will continue spinning until acted upon by an outside force such as air resistance or friction.

2. “The relationship between an objects mass m, its acceleration a, and the applied force F is F= ma. Acceleration and force are vectors (as indicated by their symbols being displayed in slant bold font); in this law the direction of the force vector is the same as the direction of the acceleration vector”. The mass of the wind turbine is directly proportional to the acceleration. So, the lighter we made the wind turbine, the easier it would be to accelerate.

3. “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”

The forces of the magnets towards the coils are equal to the forces of the coils towards the magnets.

Electromagnetic Induction

-Electromagnetic induction occurs when a magnet changes the magnetic field of a current carrying wire. This induces a voltage, which causes a current.

Torque

Torque= force x lever arm

Torque is why something rotates.

In a wind turbine, the turbine will rotate.

Energy Conservation

-In a wind turbine, which is a type of generator (opposite of motor), the energy goes from electrical energy to mechanical energy.

Friction

-Friction could stop the wind turbine from moving because friction is an opposition to motion. If the friction slowed it down, it would create less energy. 

Here are the materials we used:

• Magnets
• A cardboard box
• A flat wooden circle
• Plastic spoons (silver is too heavy- note Newton's second law)
• Wire & current carrying wire
• A plastic cup
• fastener
• LOTS of tape
• LOTS of glue

Magnet Placement 

We put the magnets on the bottom of the flat wooden circle. We stuck them close to the center in order to be close to the coils of wire. This closeness is what made it easier for the voltage to move. 

Coils

Just like our attempt to put the magnets closer to the wires, we also attempted to put the wires closer to the magnet. This occurred for the same reasons

Wind Catching Device

This is where the "LOT of glue" came in. We glued the plastic spoons to the circle (the other side contained the magnets). It hung from the top of the cardboard box and was held in position by the blue cup. The wind would cause the spoons to move and get the whole thing spinning.

This is the overall wind turbine, all put together and lookin' mighty stylish! You can see all the parts with in the cardboard box. 

In the end we ended up generating

• 0.0015 Amps
• 0.0018 Volts

-In order to generate a lightbulb we needed to have generated 0.3 Amps of current. 

 I think from this project, I learned that the voltage can be influenced by the sizing of the wires and magnets. Along with this, and along with the placement, the close the two were to each other, the more energy was created. If the wire is really long, there is more resistance which is inversely proportional to the voltage. 

However, there would be more voltage if the magnets are bigger because of their larger magnetic field. And if the wind turbine spun really fast, a lot of energy was produced. We saw that we had to experiment a few times with the placement of items but after coming to understandings such as the ones stated above, we could notice what worked better where. Thus, we placed the coils and the magnets close together and used a certain amount of coil. Our plan to use the spoons really turned out well. We didn't have to alter many things. It was also hard too because a lot of us missed class due to AP exams, and we needed that time. We didn't really have to experiment that much, we liked the style of it and it was super easy going. My advice to people doing it in the future is to keep an open mind and trust your original plan. Don't be afraid to alter or change plans either. If I could do anything differently, I wouldn't have wasted time trying to uncoil knotted wire. I needed to keep the wire organized in the first place.