Using Kites to do work

My head today is bubbling about kites (and also about biochar, wood vinegar, nematodes, compost tea, seeds and toolboxes, but kites are in there someplace!)
So I got a cheap kite from walmart, a purple butterfly with long tails. Been a lot of years since I flew one, but it came right back to me, immediately realized it's a VERY cheap little, unbalanced, uncontrollable thing!
BUT!!
The reason I wanted it was to brush up my head on kites. I have constant wind, my wind spinners are rarely still.  I have been thinking asst wind powered things, but what can I do with kites?

I'm wondering if there is a way to build one that would self launch if it came down, and have it bother birds or bunnies that eat crops. Maybe a box kite of some sort...

I think I'm going to end up digging into kite history, in my lack of spare time, to think on all this. I know there is a LOT of history, but it's been years since I read any.

And a picture to be a thumbnail for this thread.

There's a building in the near-by city to me that has a raptor kite on their roof top which seems to blow around, but I don't know if long-term it's keeping the seagulls from pooping all over the roof. Almost nothing works for long term bird chasing unless you can regularly move it around. In fact, I just moved my two Scare-Eagles last night to new spots in my field. Ask me in 2 weeks if it helps???  At least the Raptors aren't taking a bird a day...  I do have dangly things hanging off the Scare-Eagles in an effort to make them more effective.

There are places where kite-based electrical production has been proposed, but you'd have to research the odd's of it working on a small scale. I'm assuming you're not in any flight paths?

Personally, I adore the Japanese Koi Kites which are just tethered to a pole. I'm not convinced they'd scare either birds or bunnies, but I expect they'd make you smile.

Jay Angler wrote:I adore the Japanese Koi Kites which are just tethered to a pole. I'm not convinced they'd scare either birds or bunnies, but I expect they'd make you smile.

Oh YES! I love koi kites!



Edit: They do flap nicely, they'd probably disturb birds, easy to put them on a moveable pole so they can get rearranged. Would be cool to have a bunch in the garden!
Now I'm thinking about koi kites... :D

This lady made them out of cotton and included instructions. I did just finish several "practical" sewing projects. But would this scare the deer away?

https://okanarts.com/blogs/blog/koinobori

You can make usable electricity from kites using atmospheric electricity and corona motors...

If you take a thin wire and raise it to great eight like 400 feet or more, the different atmospheric pressure produces electricity that can turn a motor, although it be a very small one. Could you take a kite and fly a thin wire high and produce electricity? Absolutely, but I am not sure of the total scalability of it producing any meaningful work?

Here is a video using a drone, but a kit could work as well.

Steve Zoma wrote:You can make usable electricity from kites using atmospheric electricity and corona motors...

I think the videos I've seen using kites to generate electricity used mechanical energy from the kite. And *really* big kites tethered to great big trailers in very windy places! I already mentioned the height limits and I found it interesting that the one time the fellows in the video got it to work, they'd exceeded those limits accidentally!

This general field is AWE - Airborne Wind Energy.  I think it makes a tremendous amount of sense, because a kite can cheaply get up to altitudes much higher wind speeds.  I have followed developments for years, and it seems that the big trouble with putting the generator in the air is the weight of a conductive kite string.  If the generator is on the ground, it can reel the kite in and out.  Something like a windsurfer's kite is flown in figure eight patterns to pull strongly as the string unwinds, and then flown straight up to easily get reeled back in.
Given that what we really want is power on demand, what I'd like to try, or inspire (I'm old) is to use a kite to haul tanks of water up a hill to an upper reservoir, and produce hydropower as usual.  It is not hard to get a kite to self-launch from a pole, If the wind died during a haul, first some water would spill to make the load easier.  If the tank cart wound up down at the lower reservoir without enough wind to get going at all, the spring-loaded reel would bring the kite down before it hit the trees.  When the wind picks up, it all starts going again.  
There are, of course, many variations on how the water can be arranged according to local conditions, and many scales of capacity, from small tanks on available pneumatic tires, perhaps guided up a track by following a taut rope, to light rail, to regular tank cars.  Flatlanders might create an underground cavern by hydraulic mining, and run buckets up and down.

Bob Stuart wrote:
Given that what we really want is power on demand, what I'd like to try, or inspire (I'm old) is to use a kite to haul tanks of water up a hill to an upper reservoir, and produce hydropower as usual.  It is not hard to get a kite to self-launch from a pole, If the wind died during a haul, first some water would spill to make the load easier.  If the tank cart wound up down at the lower reservoir without enough wind to get going at all, the spring-loaded reel would bring the kite down before it hit the trees.  When the wind picks up, it all starts going again.  

OOH! That!!
You just hit the kind of thing I am interested in. Hm... thank you. Need to think on this!!

Power generation is much less interesting to me, personally, if I want power from the wind, I'll put Savonious rotors at ground level where they are easy to maintain. I am not into experimenting with tiny current loads just for the sake of doing it. I know others are into that, and I'll be interested to see how it works.

Direct use of kite/sail technology, though, THAT fascinates me.
This post Reaction Ferries totally fascinated me. That's the kind of thing I need to learn to be able to use in my own conditions, which are very different, but not really....

Kites hauling water uphill makes sense, I'll think on that. Thank you!!

I forgot to mention the kites being used for short-stroke power extraction.  They lose most of their potential in the kite string going slack and taut.  Long hauls make the most sense, and inclined roads work well with that.  
Also, when it comes to the generation of electricity, the little pelton wheels are tempting, and the efficiencies of the big ones are impressive, but the small ones suffer from the square-cube law, with more of the water being stuck in boundary layers.  Adding nozzles around a wheel does nothing to improve that ratio.  I'd look at small positive-displacement pumps used as motors.  The diaphragm types seem to be both efficient and trouble-free.  

Pearl Sutton wrote: Direct use of kite/sail technology, though, THAT fascinates me.
This post Reaction Ferries totally fascinated me. That's the kind of thing I need to learn to be able to use in my own conditions, which are very different, but not really....

OK, so what systems could one set up, where on windy days, you could get the same work on land that the ferry gets in the water?
1. I'm guessing wind has much less energy/volume - rusty physics attack...
2. Wind is much less consistent than water, so the task would have to be able to start itself up with little human intervention, ideally.
3. Wind generally comes from different directions, unlike the Rhine - if the Rhine starts flowing back and forth, we're in big trouble!!! Some places are more consistent than others, so location is everything.

I saw somewhere, someone using wind as mechanical energy to heat water, (not electrical) using friction, but I think that was just "warming" it, not full blown heating it to safe temperatures for dishwashing etc. Not sure if it worked well enough to be worth experimenting with.

Is there some way you could direct wind to do the sort of thing a Japanese Boar Scare works? It works with a water reservoir that collects a trickle of water until it is heavy enough that it tips, hits a rock causing noise, dumps the water so the weight's above the pivot point again, and starts collecting water again.

Water is 800 times denser than air, but many of the same shapes work very well in either medium.
Water is usually moving slowly and predictably. Tidal currents in narrows can be great.  Wind can go so fast it wrecks your stuff.  The aquatic equivalent is ice.  
If you build wind catchers for low wind speeds, they have to be big, and able to fold for high wind protection.  Power goes up as the square of speed, so it really pays to store power from windy days, and collect when it is as fast as possible.  A kite can be flown lower on the windiest days.  
In air, a kite needs constant management to avoid the ground.  In water, a kite really comes into its own.  It can fly from a cheap mooring instead of an expensive foundation.  It can fly down to avoid shipping.  It can fly or float up for maintenance.  It easily changes direction for tides.
Water and electricity require expensive separation, so I'd be interested in just pumping water to the shore, either for a reservoir directly, or at high pressure to run a hydraulic motor.  

Jay Angler wrote:
I saw somewhere, someone using wind as mechanical energy to heat water, (not electrical) using friction, but I think that was just "warming" it, not full blown heating it to safe temperatures for dishwashing etc. Not sure if it worked well enough to be worth experimenting with.

Direct heat from wind turbine
And it makes enough heat to run radiant floors REALLY well. Radiant floors usually use the water at 100 degrees.
It's part of my house plan. Multi-input radiant heat, one of the inputs being turbine heat. I really have a lot of wind.  
These were cutting edge tech when fossil fuels tossed them out of the marketplace.  

Mechanical energy has no trouble boiling water when I use it to cool a dull drill bit.  A dull cannon-boring tool was used to first establish that heat is a form of energy, not an element.  

I like Bob's idea. I wonder if you could put the spool on a ratchet system so that when the wind dies down your kite gets pulled in, but the load stays where it is?

I remember that SkySails was getting started when I was in school. They used large kites to pull container ships and reduce the amount of machine power needed at sea. But apparently it is a bit more complex than it sounds.

Jeremy VanGelder wrote:I like Bob's idea. I wonder if you could put the spool on a ratchet system so that when the wind dies down your kite gets pulled in, but the load stays where it is?

I think the ratchet would go on the wheels to hold a load part way up.  This might be a worthwhile gadget if the winds are quite fickle.  Around here, I'd lose about one or two loads a week with the spill and back-down system.  It would still run with partial loads, spilling at the lower reservoir to match reduced wind.  The trickiest bit currently seems to be a reliable way to keep the kite doing figure eights.  Maybe plain circles are easier, with a single string and a swivel in it to keep it from twisting.  Instead of pure string control, an autopilot with some servos and trim tabs might make life easier to keep flying as well as pulling.  

If you had automatic deployment and collapsing, it might be possible to power buckets of water on an endless chain for pumped storage.

The kite is deployed for each bucket and hauls water from the lower reservoir to the upper one, stows away on its return trip, only to deploy as it makes it way back up. With convection and wind patterns, it would but a strong breeze uphill.

Then as water rushes down it could produce power.

Or turn a paddle making hot water

I love kites!
Except we always got them stuck in the trees; I think there was the remnants of one way up in a big Butternut tree on the farm for like 20 years it seems.

Not to veer too far from what is technically a kite, but have you folks seen the Strandbeests of Theo Jansen from Holland.
He uses electrical conduit-type pipe to make incredible, articulating "creatures" propelled by the wind to walk or otherwise amble down the beach.

Let's see if I can link a video... I never tried...

Youtube

It seems to me that those creatures walking around would frighten rabbits, and many other bewildered creatures.

But I am interested in your "sky kite" projects!

I believe the "reaction ferries" were powered by the river current pushing against the keel and the static line going from shore to shore, not by the wind.

The Chinese used sails on their wheelbarrows to help transport goods to market.

Read years ago about a theory that the Egyptians used giant kites to drag stones across the desert. Quick search turns up some similar articles from around 2001. None mention some details I recall, such as the ankh being a rope control device. Similar to but used in reverse of some modern repelling devices. Same or different article suggested the bird head staff was an upside down crow bar, used to 'inch' stones into position.

Jay Angler wrote:There's a building in the near-by city to me that has a raptor kite on their roof top which seems to blow around, but I don't know if long-term it's keeping the seagulls from pooping all over the roof. Almost nothing works for long term bird chasing unless you can regularly move it around. In fact, I just moved my two Scare-Eagles last night to new spots in my field. Ask me in 2 weeks if it helps???  At least the Raptors aren't taking a bird a day...  I do have dangly things hanging off the Scare-Eagles in an effort to make them more effective.

There are places where kite-based electrical production has been proposed, but you'd have to research the odd's of it working on a small scale. I'm assuming you're not in any flight paths?

Personally, I adore the Japanese Koi Kites which are just tethered to a pole. I'm not convinced they'd scare either birds or bunnies, but I expect they'd make you smile.

In my little town, 4 years ago, the city also installed  a raptor kite (on a string and pole) that would "fly" when wind blew, and a fake "wolf boar" (that thing had fun fur wrapped around its wolf-looking head, and wild boar- looking plastic body). Both placed at 2 lake beaches to keep geese and "shit hawks" away. Both worked really well. No bird dropping anywhere in sight.
Perhaps it worked too well as this wasn't repeated again. Too bad. Bird droppings everywhere. Ugh

Public Lab is a nonprofit that was formed in the wake of the BP oil spill to support citizen scientists who want to investigate environmental disasters. They really support Kite Aerial Photography. Everyone loves drone aerial photography. But the regulations surrounding drones are much stickier than the ones surrounding kites and balloons. If you are just flying a kite along the beach, or from a kayak, the Department of Making you Sad is far less likely to come out and tell you to stop.

So I was thinking about it, and I'm trying to put a thought into words, to make more sense of it. Help me with this...
In physics I know of a plane being a flat surface that does work, like an inclined plane can be spiraled to make a screw that will pull pieces of wood together.
Using that meaning of the word plane, and accepting some curving distortion::

A sail is a 90 degree upright plane that wind (boat sail) or water (reaction ferries, boat rudders) pushes against that does work

A kite is a tilted plane that wind pushes upward, or I guess downward. What is the water equivalent? A hydrofoil?

A wind sock or carp kite is a cone shaped or tubular wind thing, is there a water equivalent? Hm.  A hose nozzle sprayer perhaps?

A circular patter of sequential planes in water can either produce energy for work (waterwheel) or use energy for work (paddlewheel)

Patterns of planes used in air are also used to either produce energy for work (windmill, wind turbines) or use energy to do work (propellers)

Question: Is there a word that I can look up that would show all the uses of all of this stuff? As a pattern, not as specific things? Example: I can look up sails, but they won't cover hydrofoils.
Is there a word for this whole pattern of planes that do work in wind or water?

I think the oddest things on when I can't sleep...
:D

I think the word you're looking for is airfoil. The term also applies to water. Relative movement of water or air across a wing is essentially the same in either. Bottom line is there will be high pressure on the slow moving side & low pressure on the faster moving side. The Bernoulli effect. Aerodynamics 101.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airfoil