The wind-powered Ventomobile blows away its competition on the racetrack
Posted 02.12.2009 at 11:15 am
13 Comments
Light Trike
Built on a lightweight carbon-fiber frame, the Ventomobile weighs less than 300 pounds.
Wolfram Scheible
In summer 2007, Alexander Miller and Jan Lehmann, aerospace-engineering students at Stuttgart University in Germany, took on an unusual task: building a wind-powered vehicle that could race directly into the wind. A year later, their team unveiled its creation, the Ventomobile, which handily defeated the field at North Holland's Racing Aeolus, the first-ever track race between vehicles powered solely by wind.
Needing a lightweight material for the frame, the team settled on carbon fiber, which was available in abundance at the university's Institute for Aircraft Design. A huge rotor mounted on top captures the wind and powers gears connected to a bicycle-style transmission to propel the vehicle forward. A pulley system the driver can operate with one hand keeps the rotor turned into the wind, which is necessary to reach maximum speed.
At the race in North Holland, the vehicle won with a top speed of 15 mph -- about 65 percent of the wind speed over the 5.5-mile course. It was also honored as the most innovative design. Now the students are tweaking it with an eye toward running at 100 percent of the wind speed at this year's race, a feat that would win them a $1,400 prize from the Energy Research Center of the Netherlands.
Catch Wind: The rotor blades are made from steel and carbon-fiber reinforced plastic. Wolfram Scheible
How The Ventomobile Works
Build: 10 months
Rotor
For maximum strength with low mass, the team constructed the rotor from plastic reinforced with carbon fiber and tested it in the university’s wind tunnel. Although the rotor generates the power that propels the Ventomobile, it also produces an opposite force of thrust that slows the vehicle down. So instead of going for maximum power, the team shaped the blades to strike a balance —between harvesting power and minimizing countervailing thrust—that achieves the highest possible speed.
Blade adjustment
The driver steers the vehicle with foot pedals, leaving his hands free to adjust the angle of the blades and the direction of the rotor. With one hand, he keeps the rotor tower turned into the wind, using a sailboat-style block-and-tackle system. A hand crank adjusts the angle of the rotor blades. The driver can tell by the electric-fan-like humming noise of the blades whether the cranking is helping or hurting the vehicle’s efficiency, allowing him to (literally) play it by ear.
Transmission
A display in the cockpit shows the driver the rotor speed, which he can adjust to increase the vehicle’s speed by switching gears. The transmission uses mountain-bike components: a chainring in front and an eight-gear cassette in the back. The driver shifts the back gears using a bicycle-style derailleur to move the chain from one sprocket to another. The team hopes to replace this system with a new, expandable bicycle gear wheel. Instead of shifting from one gear to another, the chain will remain in place around a tooth wheel that can expand or contract as needed.
How The Ventomobile Works: Wolfram Scheible
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Fantastic innovation. That's one I wish I'd come up with.
Can we use this on ships? Something says yes.
Wow. It is amazing how such an obvious idea has slipped the grasp of so many. It gives me hope for my flying car design.
I can't help but think of Wile E. Coyote on a skateboard with a sail and an electric fan. It doesn't make logical sense that you can travel directly into the wind using a wind turbine. But then again, sailboads do it by tacking and that is exactly what the rotor blades are doing.
My ideas for improvement are to put a generator in the rotor, and run the wheels off electrical power. I realize that would make the whole thing heavier, but you could add a battery and the vehicle could recharge while braking, and while stopped or even parked. This would also smooth over the dips in wind gusts, and accelerate quicker. An electric car that recharges itself by wind power.
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A great idea, but not a new one. In 1913 a West Texas farmer completed his version of the same basic idea and completed a 70 mile trip over public highways. From the 2004 book, The First American Farm Tractors (with a photo of the machine):
Mr. H.M. Fletcher of Plainview, Texas in 1913 completed his development of a traction plow that was run by wind. Gas Review magazine for April 1913 carried a feature article about Mr. Fletcher and his novel wind powered plow that he can guided in any direction. At the time of the article Mr. Fletcher had recently completed a seventy mile trip on his plow on public highways leading out of Plainview, Texas. This plow was the result of several years of experiments to develop a method for plowing the soil and the inventor in 1913 claimed that he had perfected his mechanism so that it could be put to practical use. Taken from the article: “It is claimed by Mr. Fletcher that his novel outfit is not only destined to greatly lessen the cost of farming operations in the panhandle country, but that it may be used economically in boring wells, pumping water and in various other ways where steam and more expensive power is not necessary. It does away entirely with the fuel problem, which is an important one in this part of the state, being remotely situated from sources of coal supply and wood. During the period that he was perfecting this invention, Mr. Fletcher was the subject of no little badinage on the part of his neighbors. He plodded along, however, with it until he now has the machine in what he claims is in splendid working order. He expects to do a large amount of plowing with it during the coming spring and summer”.
I just have to comment on the place of the track. I had to think twice with what you meant by North Holland, and then realised you mean to province of North Holland which is in the western part of the Netherlands. It's in the same province as Amsterdam
I just have to comment on the place of the track. I had to think twice with what you meant by North Holland, and then realised you mean to province of North Holland which is in the western part of the Netherlands. It's in the same province as Amsterdam
Nice article and nice try. This is certainly a great idea but is not at all original as people from http://menexis.com can attest to this. But I do like what you have come up with here. As mentioned earlier, Mr. Fletcher of Texa had the same idea
Very cool!
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looks really cool, and I think it runs pretty well.
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I just have to comment on the place of the track. I had to think twice with what you meant by North Holland, and then realised you mean to province of North Holland which is in the western part of the Netherlands. It's in the same province as Amsterdam
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I just have to comment on the place of the track. I had to think twice with what you meant by North Holland
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he look so young