
Inventors and the invention: The Rolling Fluid Turbine - chrisbennet
https://www.rs-online.com/designspark/inventors-and-the-invention-the-rolling-fluid-turbine
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researcher11
I think the disruptive aspect is not the efficiency but in how cheap it is (or
could be - I'm assuming it will be). It looks like something I could fabricate
in my workshop.

The ability to work with low head and with dirty water means installation and
maintenance would be way cheaper as well. People who DIY hyrdo power often
complain about the constant cleaning and maintenance required. This thing
looks like it could easily swallow small sticks and rocks with little to no
damage The plug thingy looks like it would be cheap to replace if it was ever
damaged. There are no blades to break or nozzle to clog.

The rotation appears pretty slow which I presume would lower the gear
reduction needed and make that aspect cheaper as well.

It sounded pretty quiet as well so you could build it closer to your house.
DIY hyrdo is often really noisy.

There is a crazy amount of hydro potential near where I live but they have
banned dams. Corrupt construction companies were trying to extract money out
of the area without giving any of it to the locals so the locals banned them
for 'ecology' reasons. Something like this would enable locals to install
their own hyrdo generators on the year round streams that run through their
properties.

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semi-extrinsic
From TFA:

> Typically hydroelectric power requires a huge head of water to function,
> relying on blades submerged in high-velocity water streams.

From Wikipedia's page on "Water turbines":

> Turbine selection is based on the available water head (...). Kaplan
> turbines with adjustable blade pitch are well-adapted to wide ranges of head
> conditions (...), since their peak efficiency can be achieved over a wide
> range of flow conditions.

They even provide this handy chart for turbine selection:

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Water_Tu...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Water_Turbine_Chart.png)

illustrating that Kaplan turbines work well down to 1 m head.

This turbine is an interesting concept for illustrating fluid mechanics, but I
think trying to spin it as a good alternative for a new hydroelectric turbine
type is ultimately misleading. Just from the basic function of the turbine I
sincerely doubt it can compete with a more classic type like a Kaplan or
cross-flow turbine (e.g. the viscous losses and the un-utilised pressure in
the outflow both look high).

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dandare
Disclaimer: I am the inventor's son.

Sure, Kaplan turbine is way more efficient but it is difficult and expensive
to use it on such low water head. This bladeless ball is so dumb it can be
manufactured in sweatshops and run in dirty irrigation canals from 30cm water
head. The potential is huge exactly because we can not build huge river dams
any mor. This turbine could utilize micro flows, tidal energy even waste
water. By the way it is very efficient as a garden or kitchen cleaning tool on
the standard water main.

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semi-extrinsic
This is an important aspect, for sure. A similar concept in spirit that a
colleague has worked on is the cross-flow turbine. It can be made easily and
cheaply by cutting up pieces of steel pipe and welding them back together.
There is an organization called Remote Hydrolight that supports the building
and maintenance of these for power across rural Afghanistan:

[http://www.remotehydrolight.com](http://www.remotehydrolight.com)

For micro-hydropower in Europe or the US, I believe we are still running into
the environmental issue. I understand in most countries, it is illegal to
build hydropower even in small streams, and even if you own the land, without
a lot of red tape and approval from environmental authorities.

But I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong! I hope your father
succeeds in this!

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seanmcdirmid
When I was staying at a mountain motel in the middle of Sichuan, the power
went out. Turns out, they only had power from a stream of water, and the pipe
feeding the turbine was blocked. It was all very haphazard, but it worked!

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basicplus2
This effect is well known to old school instrument fitters.. hense the
Variable Area Flow Meters are more.commonly known as rotameters , the maths
however is buried deep in such devices such as Coriolis Mass Flow Meters and
also has much to do with the friction at the counter rotating boundry layers
of the fluid between where the fluid is trying to stay laminer at both the
vessel wall and the rotating item
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_flow_meter](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_flow_meter)

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yetihehe
Many effects are already known to different people, but no one thought to use
them for some novel application.

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basicplus2
"Vortex shedding may also occur as a more stable single vortex spiral that has
a rotation direction that can be harnessed by a specially designed micro wind
turbine energy harvester"

[https://emps.exeter.ac.uk/engineering/research/structures-
dy...](https://emps.exeter.ac.uk/engineering/research/structures-
dynamics/energyharvesting/research/wearable/vortexsheddingenergyharvesting/)

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Gravityloss
Talk about burying the lede.

No good pictures of the invention, it's only shown around 6 minutes in to the
8 minute video.

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Fremsley
Visit the website embedded in the article...

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GregBuchholz
Here's another different take on small-scale hydrokinetic power generation
that I found interesting:

[http://leadingedge.engin.brown.edu/wordpress/](http://leadingedge.engin.brown.edu/wordpress/)

...no turbines to get clogged/wrapped with debris, and potentially better for
aquatic life. If nothing else, it looks pretty cool in action.

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contingencies
If you ever get the chance to visit Prague, don't mess the National Technical
Museum.

[http://www.ntm.cz/en](http://www.ntm.cz/en)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Technical_Museum_(Pra...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Technical_Museum_\(Prague\))

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LightskinKanye
I've consulted for a prominent SV VC looking at small scale hydro-kinetic
energy before.

Two major hurdles:

1\. Section 404 of the EPA's Clean Water Act (aimed at normal dams and
protecting fisheries) still applies to smaller scale hydro-kinetic turbines.

2\. We determined the potential market wasn't sufficient after looking at
detailed satellite imagery of the US and Canada river networks. It was
surprisingly small compared to the potential of solar and wind.

To really solve our energy problem we need to start getting serious about
nuclear funding. Including scholarships for master's and PhDs.

It is a great solution if you need off-grid power though.

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bboreham
Seems like a cool invention, but unfortunately the writing or editing has been
done by someone with no technical knowledge.

> a unique hydrodynamic principle, the rolling fluid principle vortex dynamic

what?

> which can create a large amount of energy

The first law of thermodynamics may want to hear about that.

> an output of up to 10 kWh per day

so ... 417W.

> This is enough power to meet the requirements of 5 European families

[1] gives German usage for one household per day as 9.6kWh

[1] [http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/average-household-
electricity...](http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/average-household-electricity-
consumption)

~~~
ChuckMcM
Fortunately the laws of Thermodynamics are safe, it it converting kinetic
energy into electricity. It doesn't appear to be more efficient that existing
hydropower solutions but it does seem to be applicable to a wider set of
flowing water conditions (which is why, I'm sure, they keep talking about
single family homes).

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najajomo
What's the torque exerted on the rotor and does it scale and what head of
water does it take to produce a useful amount of power?

