Unit-4

Thermo-electrical and thermionic Conversions

Thermo-electrical Conversions

Thermoelectric conversion is a general term of the phenomena in which heat is generated

from electricity, or vice versa, due to the characteristics of certain substances. The substances
(conductors or semiconductors) that cause such phenomena are called thermoelectric
conversion materials.

Thermionic energy conversion (TEC) is the direct conversion of heat into electricity by the
mechanism of thermionic emission, the spontaneous ejection of hot electrons from a surface.
Thermo-electrical and thermionic Conversions
Wind Energy

Wind power and its sources

Wind power or wind energy is the use of wind to provide mechanical power through wind

turbines to turn electric generators for electrical power. Wind power is a
popular sustainable, renewable energy source that has a much smaller impact on the
environment compared to burning fossil fuels.

Sources

Wind turbines, like windmills, are mounted on a tower to capture the most energy. At 100
feet (30 meters) or more aboveground, they can take advantage of the faster and less turbulent
wind. Turbines catch the wind's energy with their propeller-like blades. Usually, two or three
blades are mounted on a shaft to form a rotor.

A blade acts much like an airplane wing. When the wind blows, a pocket of low-pressure air
forms on the downwind side of the blade. The low-pressure air pocket then pulls the blade
toward it, causing the rotor to turn. This is called lift. The force of the lift is actually much
stronger than the wind's force against the front side of the blade, which is called drag. The
combination of lift and drag causes the rotor to spin like a propeller, and the turning shaft
spins a generator to make electricity.

Site selection

Four types of site are considered suitable. These are :

 Plane land sites

 Hill tops sites

 Sea- shore sites

 Off-shore shallow water sites.

Although wind power is a never ending green resource, assessment of environmental risks
and impacts- which comprise the backbone of environmental policy- in the context of
specific projects or sites often are necessary to explicate and weigh the environmental trade-
offs that are involved. In the case of wind farms, a number of turbines (ranging from about
250 kW to 750 kW) are connected together to generate large amounts of power. Apart from
the constraints resulting from the number of turbines, any site selection should think over the
technical, economic, social, environmental and political aspects.
                       
1. Technical Considerations: Many technical factors affect the decision making
on site selection including wind speed, land topography and geology, grid
structure and distance and turbine size. These technical factors must be
understood in order to give pair-wise scores to sub-factors.

2.  Wind Speed: The viability of wind power in a given site depends on having sufficient
wind speed available at the height at which the turbine is to be installed. Any choice of
wind turbine design must be based on the average wind velocity at the selected wind
turbine construction site.

3. Land topography and geology: Wind farms typically need large lands. Topography and
prevailing wind conditions determine turbine placement and spacing within a wind farm.
In flat areas where there is nothing to interfere with wind flow, at least 2600-6000
 m2/MW may be required. Wind turbines are usually sited on farms that have slope smaller
than 10-20%.

4. Grid structure and distance: The connection of wind turbines to an electricity grid can
potentially affect reliability of supply and power quality, due to the unpredictable
fluctuations in wind power output. 

5. Turbine size: Required height for the installation of turbine above ground is one of the
important factors that affect the annual energy generation. [10] Turbine size is related
with the energy output, because the bigger the turbine size is, the more wind it is exposed
to.

Criterion

 wind turbine selection based on a single criterion, energy production capacity, and
particle swarm optimization algorithm was used as the underlying optimization
algorithm.

 algorithmic and computational complexities associated with particle swarm

optimization, along with the accuracy of the decision process due to a single criterion.

 optimization of cost of energy as the turbine selection criterion, while assuming

different turbine types.

 One optimization criterion, namely, minimum cost of energy was considered which
was modeled as function of expected annual energy output, capacity factor, and cost
of energy.

 In order to develop the two-level fuzzy logic model for the underlying problem, the
upper and lower limits for each decision criteria were found using the data collected
for the concerned site. Using these bounds and the data from the sites, fuzzy
membership values for each criterion are computed and aggregated in form of an
overall decision function according to the proposed approach.

 MCDM is a technique used in situations requiring decisions while considering

multiple and “conflicting” decision criteria. Conflicting criteria are those criteria
which negatively impact each other, i.e., improving the quality of one criterion
degrades the quality of other(s).
Momentum theory

 Momentum theory or disk actuator theory is a theory describing a mathematical model of

an ideal actuator disk, such as a propeller or helicopter rotor, by W.J.M.
Rankine (1865), Alfred George Greenhill (1888) and Robert Edmund Froude (1889).

The rotor is modeled as an infinitely thin disc, inducing a constant velocity along the axis
of rotation. The basic state of a helicopter is hovering. This disc creates a flow around the
rotor. Under certain mathematical premises of the fluid, there can be extracted a
mathematical connection between power, radius of the rotor, torque and induced
velocity. Friction is not included.

For a stationary open rotor with no outer duct, such as a helicopter in hover, the power
required to produce a given thrust is:

where:

 T is the thrust

 is the density of air (or other medium)

 A is the area of the rotor disc

 P is power

A device which converts the translational energy of the fluid into rotational energy of the
axis or vice versa is called a Rankine disk actuator. The real life implementations of such
devices are e.g. marine and aviation propellers, windmills, helicopter rotors, centrifugal
pumps, wind turbines, turbochargers and chemical agitators.
Classification of rotors

Starting from classical horizontal axis rotors (old windmills), a lot of types of wind rotors
were developed as time went on, some of them were excellent. Indeed the first windmills
developed in Mesopotamia were built with vertical axis, mounting, radially, some vertical
flags. After some centuries and thanks to the deep experience gained, man optimized the
rotor reaching excellent results such as the Dutch and Greek windmills.

Wind rotors can be divided into three main groups:

- System with horizontal axis

- System with vertical axis
- Hybrid

SYSTEM WITH HORIZONTAL AXIS

In this case the axis is perpendicular to the wind direction and the blades move to the
direction of the air flux. The SAVONIUS rotor (from the name of the Finlander J.
Savonius who invented it in 1929) is the simplest type. It can be built opposing two half
cylinders hinged on the axis of the rotor itself. In this type of rotor a system of orientation
of the blades is not necessary, however not all the surface is exposed to the wind. In fact,
while a blade collects the air flux and it is pushed, the other one turns to the opposite side,
reducing the performance.

The main characteristics of this wind rotor are the following ones:

•  front area totally used

•  high speed of rotation
•  high coefficient of lift
•  high power obtainable
SYSTEM WITH VERTICAL AXIS
In this case the axis is perpendicular to the wind direction and the blades move to the
direction of the air flux. The SAVONIUS rotor (from the name of the Finlander J. Savonius
who invented it in 1929) is the simplest type. It can be built opposing two half cylinders
hinged on the axis of the rotor itself. In this type of rotor a system of orientation of the blades
is not necessary, however not all the surface is exposed to the wind. In fact, while a blade
collects the air flux and it is pushed, the other one turns to the opposite side, reducing the
performance.
The main characteristics of this wind rotor are the following ones:

a. low speed of rotation b. high mechanical torque c. modest performance

HYBRID SYSTEMS
They are the youngest and they combine the advantageous characteristics of both the
systems with horizontal and vertical axis. In general they are with vertical axis with
propellers or blades derived from the previous ones. Here are some examples: the
Darrieous rotor, the Cycloturbine, the Ropatec rotor, the rotor with delta flange (see the
photo), ext.
The main characteristics of this wind rotor are the following ones:

a. easiness of construction b. high speed of rotation c. no orientation system

d. power coefficients close to the theoretical value
Concentrations and augments
 principle of operation that can be applied to a large variety of new wind turbines
designs.
 As a function of the choices in design, this new generation of a wind turbine
apparatus improves or remedies each of the above-mentioned problems associated
with traditional wind turbines
 The basic concept is the funnelling of wind in a conduit to concentring it.

 The flux of compressed air is thereby directed to interact with the most efficient
surface of a wind turbine propeller blade.
 The turbine can thus be designed with the goal of benefiting from the weakest winds
or, contrarily,benefiting from the strongest winds.
 Since the wind turbine is housed within the apparatus, the resulting noise caused by
aerodynamic motions can be almost completely attenuated.
 Furthermore, an enclosed wind turbine conceals the visible movement of the
propellers and protects flying wildlife
 Aerodynamics is a branch of dynamics concerned with studying the motion of air,
particularly when it interacts with a solid object. Aerodynamics is a subfield of fluid
dynamics and gas dynamics, with much theory shared between them. Aerodynamics
is often used synonymously with gas dynamics, with the difference being that gas
dynamics applies to all gases.
Augmentation
 Diffuser Augmented Wind Turbines (DAWTs) are one of many concepts to have been
proposed to reduce the cost of renewable energy. As the most commercially viable,
they have been the focus of numerous theoretical, computational, and experimental
investigations.
 Although intimated in these studies to be able to augment the power output of a wind
turbine, the extent of this power increase, or augmentation, the factors influencing
DAWT performance, the optimal geometric form and their economical benefit
remained unanswered.
 To translate the available augmentation into shaft power a modified blade element
method has been developed using an empirically-derived axial velocity equation. The
resulting blade designs whose efficiencies reached 77%, twice those of Grumman,
highlight the accuracy of the modified blade element method in calculating the flow
conditions at the blade-plane of the multi-slotted DAWT.
 It was also noted that the rotor efficiencies remain below 'best practice' and therefore
offer the potential for further increases in shaft augmentation
Wind characteristics
Site-specific wind characteristics pertinent to wind turbines include:
 Mean wind speed: Only interesting as a headline figure, but does not tell how often
high wind speeds occur.
 Wind speed distribution : diurnal, seasonal, annual patterns.
 Turbulence: short-term fluctuations.
 Long-term fluctuations.
 Mean Wind Speed and Energy Distribution: The mean wind speed can be defined as
time-averaged wind speed, averaged over a specified time interval. The mean wind speed
varies with elevation above mean sea level and the averaging time interval; a standard
reference elevation is 10 m and a standard time interval is 1 h. In practice this implies that
we should carefully define our energy demands
 Minimum energy production (water/electricity) per week/month/year. This value,
together with the average wind speed, will give the minimum rotor size (and a first
estimate of cost price).
 Allowance of no energy production during a certain period (giving an impression
about water storage tanks or batteries).
 Time of the year that the system is really producing energy.
In order to decide whether or not a wind energy system will satisfy our energy needs, we
have to know more about the prevailing wind speeds at the future wind turbine site.
Performance of Wind Energy Conversion System (WECS)
The complete wind energy conversion systems (WECS), which converts the energy
present in the moving air (wind) to electric energy. The wind passing through the
blades of the wind turbine generates a force that turns the turbine shaft. The rotational
shaft turns the rotor of an electric generator, which converts mechanical power into
electric power. The major components of a typical wind energy conversion system
include the wind turbine, generator, interconnection apparatus and control systems.
The power developed by the wind turbine mainly depends on the wind speed, swept
area of the turbine blade, density of the air, rotational speed of the turbine and the type
of connected electric machine.

As shown in figure 1, there are primarily two ways to control the WECS. The first is
the Aerodynamic power control at either the Wind Turbine blade or nacelle, and the
second is the electric power control at an interconnected apparatus, e.g., the power
electronics converters. The flexibility achieved by these two control options facilitates
extracting maximum power from the wind during low wind speeds and reducing the
mechanical stress on the wind turbine during high wind speeds.
Limitations of Wind Energy Conversion System

 The wind is inconsistent

 Wind turbines involve high upfront capital investment

 Wind turbines have a visual impact

 May reduce the local bird population

 Wind turbines are prone to noise disturbances

 Installation can take up a significant portion of land

 Wind turbines can be a safety hazard

 Wind turbines are suited to a particular region