Analysis: German company eyes wind ship (Magnus Effect turbines)

[jpak]

http://www.upi.com/Energy/view.php?StoryID=20061124-115150-1156r

BERLIN, Nov. 24 (UPI) -- A German wind turbine manufacturer wants to power large freight ships with wind energy as rising oil price have caused energy firms to become interested in the cutting-edge technology.

The computer-generated image of the freight ship of the future is at first startling: Out of each of the ship deck's four corners blooms a steel cylinder, looking like chimneys from a long outdated fossil fuel era. But the cylinders rotate and they don't give off any emissions. On the contrary, they are the key elements of a new wind propulsion system for ships, with which German company Enercon wants to save emissions and fossil fuels based on a physical phenomenon known for the past 150 years.

In 1853, Gustav Magnus, a physicist from Berlin, discovered that when air flows around a rotating object, its one side with the spinning increases the velocity of the air flow, while the other side, spinning in the opposite direction, decreases the air flow. The resulting pressure differential drives the object perpendicular to the direction of the wind -- like a curve ball in baseball or a top spin in Tennis.

In the 1920s, Anton Flettner, another German scientist, used the principle of the Magnus effect to power a sailboat: With wind blowing from the side, the rotating cylinders, two of which he mounted on his boat Baden-Baden, pushed it forward.

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[bahrbearian]

1. One type

[jpak]

2. Cool - do you have a link???

:hi:

[bahrbearian]

3. http://www.transitionrig.com

www.transitionrig.com/windships.htm

[jpak]

6. thanks!

Those sails look like pterodactyl (or bat) wings.

Also like the way they furl...

[EST]

4. Wasn't there an undersea investigator of great renown

(who also perfected scuba) the proud owner/operator of just such a vessel, traveling around the world a few years back?

I think Jacques Cousteau's son is still "sailing" this same ship, with amazing success.

on edit:A little googling has just informed me that the Calypso is now sunk--a victim of the battle between His son and his widow. No Solomon, either of these two.

[Dead_Parrot]

5. It is/was the Alcyone...

...not the Calypso. I think it's still going, but Cousteau.org doesn't want to talk to me. :(

[EST]

7. You are, of course, stunningly correct.

It is a beautiful machine, isn't it?

[tartaros]

8. alternative

what about a vertical axis wind turbine? You would gain power no matter what direction the wind is.