Tom Connolly wrote:This is a bit of an involved question. It seems that 3d printers are becoming more and more useful these days. In order to decide if it was worth while to buy one, I made a list of things that I could build/repair/maintain with one - also to see how large a printer I would need. The largest thing I think I would want to make with a 3d printer is the blades for a vertical axis windmill. I have seen some models that use blades that are 24" long. Has anyone seen designs for wind turbines that can be built with 3D printers?
I suppose it is possible to print blades for a windturbine in an 3D-printer, but I highly suspect that it´s not the best idéa especialy for a horrisontal axis wind turbine. It is probably faster, cheaper and more durable to use wooden blades :)
Reason for that beeing that windturbineblades in general experiense big and uneven forces.
3D-printers produce parts that are "weak" to pull in at least one axis (layer adhesion I belive it is called).
For a vertical axis design this perhaps can be mitigated by choosing the "right" direction when printing the blade, for a horisontal axis turbine this is probbably not possible since it experiense both pull and push in three axis.
Also the forces in a horisontal axis design is far greater and more dynamic (changing between push and pull in the same axis at least twice per revoultion) than in a comparable vertical-axis turbine.
As a sidenote the efficiency and lifespan is significantly less for any horisontal windturbine when compared with a similar sized vertical. I realy can´t se any useful application where I would recomend a horisontal axis windturbine. I am not aware of a single advantage with this compared to a vertical axis.
