By: Ibraheem A.
Year: 2021
School: Orange Crescent
Grade: 6
Science Teacher: Heather Mansour
Wind turbines are one of the most popular ways to generate clean energy. Many things can affect the power output of wind turbines, such as the blade diameter. But how does the blade diameter affect the power output of wind turbines? Ibraheem hypothesized that the larger the blade diameter, the greater the power output. His hypothesis was tested with a wind turbine, a fan and a multimeter. The results show that he was mostly correct. The reason he was not fully correct is because the nine inch blade did not generate more power than the six or eight inch blades. However, when all three blades were tested on a high torque generator, the six and eight inch blades would not spin, while the nine inch blade was strong enough to spin the generator despite how stiff it was. This information can be useful when making wind turbines to power homes as more efficient wind turbines will cost less and generate more.
According to the experiment, the six inch and eight inch blade diameters generated more power than the nine inch diameter when tested on a small, 3 volt, high RPM generator. However, when all three blade diameters were tested on a low RPM, 24 volt generator, the 6 and eight inch diameter blades would not spin because they were too weak, while the 9 inch diameter blade generated more than twenty times the six and eight inch blades combined.