As unconventional wind turbines go, the flapping machine introduced by Tunisian company Tyer Wind is on the far edge of quirky. Employing dual oscillating blades that mimic the figure-8 motion of the wings of a hovering hummingbird, the turbine’s relatively compact design make it a potential fit for residential use.
For the Tyer Wind machine’s inventor, Anis Aouini, this isn’t the first unorthodox wind converter design. His company, Saphon Energy, developed the Saphonian bladeless turbine in 2012. This time around the firm looked to one of nature’s most energy efficient flyers, the hummingbird, inspired especially by the bird’s ability to hover in place for an extended period. From this, Aouini developed his “Aouinian 3D kinematics,” a design he claims very efficiently “allows the conversion of a linear motion into a rotational one.”
Constructed of carbon fiber, the two vertical axis wings of the Tyer Wind turbine are 5.25 feet in length (1.6m) for a total sweep area of 11.7 feet (3.56m). This relatively compact size is less than the sweep area for typical three-blade horizontal-axis wind turbines made for residential use. Though the Tyer turbine’s rated power output of 1 kW is also less.
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