Sorry for the confusion. it's sailor talk, a "lift" is an impulse in the direction you're trying to go.
-- rec -- On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 10:43 AM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote: > Cyclists want lift??!! How do they maintain contact with the road? > > N > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe] > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Roger Critchlow <r...@elf.org> > *To: *nickthomp...@earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity > Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> > *Sent:* 11/25/2009 10:26:08 AM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] flocking windmills > > No, the pelaton uses the lead rider to break a bow wave through the air, > but the eddies from each rider's passage also curl around to give some lift > to the subsequent riders in the pelaton. If you smoothed it out into one > long cylinder, it wouldn't work as well. > > The vertical wind turbines work as a flock because they induce a sort > of do-si-do of the wind through the flock, where each rank of turbines is > positioned to catch the eddy from the preceding rank and throw it back to > the next rank. Because the wind takes a longer than straight path through > the flock, it has to move faster than the unimpeded wind. If you just set > up a stonehenge in the same arrangement as the flock of turbines, you'd get > the same sort of velocity effect. > > Having the flock adjust its geometry could be a big win. A fixed > installation would be tuned to the most likely wind speed and direction. > > -- rec -- > > On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 9:58 AM, Nicholas Thompson < > nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote: > >> Hugh, >> >> Thanks for explaining this to me. I figured it was something like that. >> >> But the logic IS backwards with respect to the bike racer model. The Bike >> racer pod is trying to protect the lead racer from wind resistance, the wind >> mills are trying to pass that resistance through to ever member of the pod. >> >> We could shrink-wrap the bike-pod, and it would do its job even better. >> Not so the windmill pod. >> >> Right? >> >> N >> >> Nicholas S. Thompson >> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >> Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu) >> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ >> http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe] >> >> >> >> >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> *From:* Hugh Trenchard <htrench...@shaw.ca> >> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group<friam@redfish.com> >> ;nickthomp...@earthlink.net;Carl Tollander <c...@plektyx.com> >> *Cc: *fr...@redfish.com >> *Sent:* 11/25/2009 7:15:27 AM >> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] flocking windmills >> >> >> ...that should read "rotate the position of the fans 90 degrees" (it was >> late and I should have been in bed). >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> *From:* Hugh Trenchard <htrench...@shaw.ca> >> *To:* nickthomp...@earthlink.net ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity >> Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> ; Carl Tollander <c...@plektyx.com> >> *Cc:* Friam@redfish.com >> *Sent:* Wednesday, November 25, 2009 12:05 AM >> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] flocking windmills >> >> >> It looks to me the article addresses this. When windmills are in a >> conventional "face to the wind" position, they do need to be well spread out >> in order to catch as much wind as possible. But if you rotate the position >> 90 of the fans degrees so that they are spinning "sideways", they spin with >> greater efficiency when lined up behind each other in zones of lower air >> resistance. The article appears to refer to this fan position as a >> "vertical" rotation. The photo shows "vertically" rotating tube like >> structures, which are much like long fans turned on their sides. Aligning >> them in fish school formation evidently is the most efficient in terms of >> space and maximal wattage generation. That's how it all appears to me in >> any event. >> >> Hugh Trenchard >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> *From:* Nicholas Thompson <nickthomp...@earthlink.net> >> *To:* Carl Tollander <c...@plektyx.com> >> *Cc:* Friam@redfish.com >> *Sent:* Tuesday, November 24, 2009 9:45 PM >> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] flocking windmills >> >> Sorry, everybody. What I meant to write was, "*Wait *a blithering >> moment!!!", suggesting, at least, that the metaphor between bunching up >> cyclists and bunching up windturbines was backwards. Don't you WANT your >> turbines to "feel" the "headwind"? >> >> Of course I am wrong about this, but I sure would like to understand why. >> >> Nick >> >> Nicholas S. Thompson >> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >> Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu) >> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ >> http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe] >> >> >> >> >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> *From:* Carl Tollander <c...@plektyx.com> >> *To: *nickthomp...@earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity >> Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> >> *Sent:* 11/24/2009 10:13:22 PM >> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] flocking windmills >> >> What they lack is mobility - lacking some sort of mobile platform maybe >> they could get together and decide where the next best placement would be >> and tell the manufacturing and installation people. Some sort of >> distributed instantiation - Group orders another member, turbine shows up in >> the mail, speaks up, says, "I am a wind turbine, the group has determined >> that it will be most efficient if you place me over there." And the humans >> would go do that, since the turbine family was usually right about such >> things. >> >> So maybe the turbines "want" some particular configuration, the friction >> is just one criteria. If they were a phased array antenna (in addition to >> being a group of wind turbines) then they would have additional criteria. >> >> C >> >> Nicholas Thompson wrote: >> >> Now what a blithering moment. Cyclists flock to reduce friction. Ditto >> fish, I suppose. >> >> So, turbines want less friction with the wind????? >> >> Something screwy here. >> >> N >> >> Nicholas S. Thompson >> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >> Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu) >> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/> >> http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe] >> >> >> >> >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> *From:* Roger Critchlow <r...@elf.org> >> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group<friam@redfish.com> >> *Sent:* 11/24/2009 7:36:30 PM >> *Subject:* [FRIAM] flocking windmills >> >> Same power production as existing wind farms in 100th the land area. >> >> http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/1124/1 >> >> -- rec -- >> >> ------------------------------ >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >> >> ------------------------------ >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >> >> ------------------------------ >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >> >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >> > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
