Build A Power Boat , Powered By Wind

[windboat]

Hi,everyone .We have designed a power boat 16 meters long,powered by a 150KW eletric motor.
And, the electricity comes from a 5KW wind turbine generate energy
then store in batteries. This boat istruly zero emission vehicle.
Is anybody interested in this project?
We locate at Taipei,Taiwan. We need financial support to complete this project.
Here is the general layout of this boat:http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/diypower-...rev=22&next=17

[TeddyDiver]

Good luck with the project..

[ASM]

Do you have any picturs or renderings ? Is the wind turbine on the vessel itself ?

[Jeremy Harris]

Sounds interesting, but the ratio of consumed power to generated power seems very high to me. I've done a fair bit of work (albeit at much lower overall power levels) on solar powered boats (and in essence a wind turbine boat could be considered to be solar powered, as the sun creates the temperature differentials that create wind). One thing I've learned is that, because battery storage takes up a lot of hull volume and weight, you really need to look hard at the usage profile and optimise the generation capability against the power usage capability so that you can size the battery bank appropriately.

For example, if your 150kW peak power unit consumes around 100kw average, and your 5kW peak wind turbine generates around 2kW average (both pretty reasonable figures, maybe a tad optimistic for the wind turbine) then your boat will only be able to operate for 2 hours per 100 hours. In other words, no matter what the battery capacity the ratio of cruising time to moored up wind turbine charging time will be around 1 to 50.

For some leisure boats only used for a day or two a month this may be OK, although a big battery bank will be required to sustain 100kW for more than an hour or two.

My boat will run for around 8 hours with no solar charging and needs maybe 12 hours of sun to give 8 hours of cruise power. This is OK for leisure use, as in practice it's rare to cruise for more than 5 or 6 hours a day, leaving plenty of daylight to re-charge the battery bank.

What do you intend using your boat design for?

[daiquiri]

That's one challenging feat, I'd say...

In addition to Jeremy Harris' observations, a 5 kW wind turbine is dimensionally an important piece of machinery on board. It will have a diameter of 5-6 meters and a weight of at least 200 kgs + the pole (another 50-100 kgs, as a first estimate), based on the tech specs of various existing models. I'd be interersted to know how did you assure it's storage and deployment on board?

You say the boat is powered by one electric motor, so I presume it is a monohull. On the other side, an electric propulsion requires a light and slender hull, to minimize the propulsive power requirements. How did you marry a low stability of a light slender hull and a high heeling moment due to wind turbine, when deployed and exposed to 10-12 m/s wind (presumed but typical value)?

And finally, is it possible to know what is the max displacement your boat?

Cheers.

[windboat]

Originally Posted by TeddyDiver

Good luck with the project..

Thank you.

[windboat]

Yes ,you may find the general lay out file"windboat" in boat design gallery.

[daiquiri]

Originally Posted by windboat

Yes ,you may find the general lay out file"windboat" in boat design gallery.

This one, I guess:



Was this design reviewed by an engineer or a NA with experience in wind turbines and electrical propulsion?

If this is a monohull vessel, I have already expressed my humble doubts about this configuration, and they remain.

Plus one more question, if you don't mind: why do you need a 150 kW engine, if it will be electric propulsion boat? You will probably need less than half that power to go at max. displacement speed.

Cheers

[messabout]

Seems to me that the moment induced by the turbine aloft will be an important design factor. The boat will need to be rather wide, or perhaps a multi.

[windboat]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Harris

Sounds interesting, but the ratio of consumed power to generated power seems very high to me. I've done a fair bit of work (albeit at much lower overall power levels) on solar powered boats (and in essence a wind turbine boat could be considered to be solar powered, as the sun creates the temperature differentials that create wind). One thing I've learned is that, because battery storage takes up a lot of hull volume and weight, you really need to look hard at the usage profile and optimise the generation capability against the power usage capability so that you can size the battery bank appropriately.

For example, if your 150kW peak power unit consumes around 100kw average, and your 5kW peak wind turbine generates around 2kW average (both pretty reasonable figures, maybe a tad optimistic for the wind turbine) then your boat will only be able to operate for 2 hours per 100 hours. In other words, no matter what the battery capacity the ratio of cruising time to moored up wind turbine charging time will be around 1 to 50.

For some leisure boats only used for a day or two a month this may be OK, although a big battery bank will be required to sustain 100kW for more than an hour or two.

My boat will run for around 8 hours with no solar charging and needs maybe 12 hours of sun to give 8 hours of cruise power. This is OK for leisure use, as in practice it's rare to cruise for more than 5 or 6 hours a day, leaving plenty of daylight to re-charge the battery bank.

What do you intend using your boat design for?

Most of the private boat only cruise one or two day per week. So, the boat
have plenty of times to recharge batteries. I hope this boat's speed will go up
to 15 knots, that why I design a bigger motor. If, the boat cruise at low speed. The motor's power electronic unit could reduce the output of batteries. It will make energy more efficient.

[aranda1984]

Gentlemen,

Recently I had a customer who was convinced by a sales pitch that there is a conspiracy by the oil companies to surpress H2O (water) driven, wind turbine and solar power devices.

I tried to talk him out of the idea, but he wanted R&D proof.

Left and right he spent about 50K (about 5K for my model H2O generator.) to duplicate the results of an internet claim of a wehicle that does 60 miles per hour to the distance of 60 miles on two ounces of water!!!

It was a succesful sales job on the part of the promoter,. who drew a monthly salary!

... This thread calls for money also!


See:

"Hi,everyone .We have designed a power boat 16 meters long,powered by a 150KW eletric motor.
And, the electricity comes from a 5KW wind turbine generate energy
then store in batteries. This boat istruly zero emission vehicle.
Is anybody interested in this project?
We locate at Taipei,Taiwan. We need financial support to complete this project."

They have designed it, now they need money to build it...

Figure out the price of some exotic batteries to hold up to 150 KWh charge at the voltage the motor would run efficiently.

Remember, R&D does not guarantee positive outcome on any project.

There are more things wrong with this project then right!

Potencial investors: save your money, I will come up with a better idea. A perpetual mobile!

Here it goes:

You wind up a rubber band to take your boat to the top of the wave, downhill you regenerate the energy so that you can climb up the next wave...

However, you need to buy my very special propulsion device for this action.

(For those who can't wait for the next chapter...it is a paddle wheel with rubber bands.)

I am already working on smooth water propulsion and I envision a couple of foot pedals in the future! (A couple of foot, should it be feet?)

(My excuse is that I had too many liquor filled chocolates and I get very inventive from it...)

[Jeremy Harris]

You need to do the calculations here, because efficiency doesn't necessarily improve when you under0run a large, heavy, electric powerplant. Many of the major losses are fixed and not proportional to power output.

150kW is an exceptionally high power for the size and speed of vessel you are considering.

You mention cruising for one or two days per week, which implies a generation to usage ratio of between 7:1 and 14:1 (assuming that usage periods are 12 hour days and generation periods are 24 hour days).

You will be lucky if a 5kW peak wind generator will deliver as much as 2kW average, my guess is it will turn out to be less in practice. Even if it did generate 2kW average then this means that you will only have around 14 to 28kW of power available to meet your suggested usage profile, making the selection of a 150kW power plant a bit wasteful.

[windboat]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Harris

Sounds interesting, but the ratio of consumed power to generated power seems very high to me. I've done a fair bit of work (albeit at much lower overall power levels) on solar powered boats (and in essence a wind turbine boat could be considered to be solar powered, as the sun creates the temperature differentials that create wind). One thing I've learned is that, because battery storage takes up a lot of hull volume and weight, you really need to look hard at the usage profile and optimise the generation capability against the power usage capability so that you can size the battery bank appropriately.

For example, if your 150kW peak power unit consumes around 100kw average, and your 5kW peak wind turbine generates around 2kW average (both pretty reasonable figures, maybe a tad optimistic for the wind turbine) then your boat will only be able to operate for 2 hours per 100 hours. In other words, no matter what the battery capacity the ratio of cruising time to moored up wind turbine charging time will be around 1 to 50.

For some leisure boats only used for a day or two a month this may be OK, although a big battery bank will be required to sustain 100kW for more than an hour or two.

My boat will run for around 8 hours with no solar charging and needs maybe 12 hours of sun to give 8 hours of cruise power. This is OK for leisure use, as in practice it's rare to cruise for more than 5 or 6 hours a day, leaving plenty of daylight to re-charge the battery bank.

What do you intend using your boat design for?

Originally Posted by daiquiri

That's one challenging feat, I'd say...

In addition to Jeremy Harris' observations, a 5 kW wind turbine is dimensionally an important piece of machinery on board. It will have a diameter of 5-6 meters and a weight of at least 200 kgs + the pole (another 50-100 kgs, as a first estimate), based on the tech specs of various existing models. I'd be interersted to know how did you assure it's storage and deployment on board?

You say the boat is powered by one electric motor, so I presume it is a monohull. On the other side, an electric propulsion requires a light and slender hull, to minimize the propulsive power requirements. How did you marry a low stability of a light slender hull and a high heeling moment due to wind turbine, when deployed and exposed to 10-12 m/s wind (presumed but typical value)?

And finally, is it possible to know what is the max displacement your boat?

Cheers.

The boat's max displacement is around 15 MT. I will use 90 batteries
(100AH,12V )for this boat . The batteries weight 3000 kgs total. They are
place near the boat's bottom to counter balance the moment of wind turbine.
The height of mast is 10m. The wind turbine and mast cross section areas(wind) are around 10 m sq . Compare to existing sail boats, it should be OK.

[srimes]

First, for anyone considering supporting this project, please add me to the list. I'd love some financial support for my boat project!

I can't say much about what has been proposed except that it doesn't seem balanced. Turbine-motor-and boat don't all match.

As for theory, it's a somewhat interesting prospect. I wouldn't call it a power boat, I'd call it a turbine sail boat. How might they compare?

Overturning moment: The turbine blades will have a much higher lift/drag ratio than sails, so it'll have a smaller moment for a given area and CE. But the CE will be higher, reducing this benefit. The turbine will capture more energy/area as well, but this advantage may be lost in conversion. The turbine will have much more weight aloft.

Efficiency: I don't know what it is for sails. Anyone chip in here? A 5kw turbine is probably about 25% efficient (electrical output/wind input). The motor would be, what, 90%, and let's say 60% gets to the prop. So may 14% of the wind energy goes to moving the boat if there are no batteries in the system.

Mechanical mills have been tried, and they can go straight up wind. I believe they were slower than conventional sails. Electric turbines used for pumping water will pump at least twice as much water as mechanical wind pumpers, so maybe an electric turbine could be comparable with conventional sails?

Ignoring cost, complexity, and noise of course. Which is why it probably won't work.

[Jeremy Harris]

Originally Posted by windboat

The boat's max displacement is around 15 MT. I will use 90 batteries
(100AH,12V )for this boat . The batteries weight 3000 kgs total. They are
place near the boat's bottom to counter balance the moment of wind turbine.
The height of mast is 10m. The wind turbine and mast cross section areas(wind) are around 10 m sq . Compare to existing sail boats, it should be OK.

Your calculations are absolutely massively in error, I'm afraid. Assuming that the batteries are deep cycle lead acid traction batteries, with a Peukert factor of around 1.4, then you can expect to get around 75 to 80kWh of usable capacity from them when new. At 150kW, such a tiny battery bank will only run the propulsion system for around 30 minutes before you run out of stored power. As the batteries age your usable capacity will reduce, making the range reduce in proportion.

You really do need to do some fundamental research into what is, and more importantly, what is not, viable when it comes to designing a vessel like this. Please do not invest any money in this scheme until you have grasped the fundamental principles of effectively using renewable energy to power a vessel.

Jeremy