If you are flummoxed by a problem where do you go? Well, if we don't have the answers Mother Nature certainly does. Animals have been on Earth far longer than us humans and they are infinitely better at taming the elements than we are. Thus perhaps was born the scientific field of 'Functional Morphology'. One of its exponents is Professor Frank Fish of West Chester University. With a name like that perhaps he was to the manner born. His lifelong scientific mission has been to design a better blade for windmills.

Generating power from the elements essentially involves squeezing out the last bit of juice, whether it is solar, tidal or wind energy. With advancements in science have come better materials and better ways to use those materials. In the case of wind power, windmill blades are designed keeping in mind the impact of the wind on the surface area of the blade. Often, because of the gust, blades stall. Modern age blades factor in this predicament and they are cut at an angle to deflect the onward wind flows. The angle and the design of the blades is a key element for total efficiency.



Professor Frank Fish had his eureka moment when he likened the pectoral fin movement of humpback whales slicing through the water with his problem. His non conformal imagination wondered about a basic design feature of humpback whale fins - why do the fins have bumps around the edges?

Naturally, to test this nebulous idea he crafted a model fin out of the real McCoy and eureka...he discovered that it did indeed slice through water with less resistance. Air like water is fluid and the same laws of resistance and motion apply. So started Professor Fish's project to design a better wind turbine blade based on a humpback fin template.

He managed to lay his hands on a humpback fin from a dead beached whale courtesy the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, New Jersey. After two long years of research and study, he created his first prototype. Helping him with this whale of an idea are the US Naval Academy and Duke University. Another prototype is to be made with the help of Envira-North Systems, Ltd. in Ontario, Canada.

The good news is that preliminary tests of the bumpy-edged Fish turbine indicate that they are not stalling as conventional blades, even when cut at a very steep angle. It is also believed that with a bumpy-edged windmill rather than a conventional smooth-edged blade, only half the number of blades will be needed to generate power. Reports from the field indicate that the new design is indeed more effective than the old ones. It has caught the eye of Harvard engineer Ernst A van Nieropp who says,
" There's definitely something going on with these bumps."
Congratulations, Professor Frank Fish! This has been a whale of an idea.

Source: Celsias.com

Image: Flickr.com