The Dyson Air Multiplier:http://www.dyson.com/technology/airmultiplier.asp
Scroll down for a "how it works".
Posted here to see what the propellerheads (and comedians) have to say.
Are you looking at having larger versions of these located up and down the east coast to provide non stop windsurfing....It's a good idea.
it was just a ducted fan with some magic words added and some critical parts left out of the graphic,so it looked funky.
Youd be amazed at the number of dyson vacumn cleaners that go to the tip, the look like little R2D2's but suck like crap
No its not a ducted fan. There's a fan of some sort in the base that pressurises the ring. This air passes through long skinny ports all around the leading edge and directed over the foil. Have a look at the video.
Heard of it a few months back, and did some research on it...came to the conclusion that I normally do in these circumstances...
...I'm a dumb sh!t that has no idea how most sh!t works!
we used to have a pool "vacuum cleaner" like that;
long PVC pipe, one end has a garden hose connector, the other end has a small squirty jet head encased in a 20cm long off cut of larger (2 inch) PVC set at 45 degrees to the direction of the long pipe.
Basically, above the pool, garden hose water is shot very fast under high pressure from the nozzle upwards through the thicker pipe. Once you have put the squirty end under the pool water it drags lots of the pool water through the thick pipe with it, I would agree that it was about 15 times more water, but it was also traveling about 15 time less distance too.
You don't get anything for nothing. It doesn't matter how you drive the air you still have to do the same amount of work. Enery in = Energy out and some of that energy out is wasted doing useless stuff. The best you can hope for is improved efficiency. On the face of it that seems like a more efficient way to drive air. Ducted fans are pretty efficient too I understand. Sucking air through a tortuous route through the base would lose a bit, particularly if its going fast.
How could you apply that to sails? The goal is to get more air moving across the sail or to put it another way, to turn more air. The amount of power in a windsurfer is limited by the ability of the sailor to hold it. Its a purely mechanical thing. The heavier the sailor and the lower the centre of lift in the sail, the more power can be harnessed. If you could use this air entrainment principle to lower the centre of lift you'd be getting somewhere.
