How do you calculate the number of copper wire coils for a generator so that I can generate 1200 Kw power?
by admin on Thursday, July 29th, 2010 | 4 Comments
I am building a home-made wind turbine generator with lots of tools, money and materials. I need to know how to calculate the number of copper coils, i.e. coil number, windings, size of windings, etc., to generate 1200 Kw of electricity. What size of copper wire? Size of magnets? How many? I am really interested on the mathematics of the wind turbine construction.
Hey USA, Bramble is quite correct. You have two issues here. First, design of the generator itself. The number and size of windings has more to do with the frequency of the generator output and the current you expect to carry through the winding. The power output will be a function of the current and the voltage that is generated. Once you have the generator built, and you know what RPM it needs to turn at, then you can get into the gritty part of designing the turbine. Your generator will require a certain amount of horsepower to turn it, and since most wind turbines operate in the 25% efficiency range, you then have to build a unit that can sweep an area and wind speed about 4 times the power output of your generator. 1200 KW by the way is huge, do you mean 1.2kw by chance?
We live in a home that has been powered by the wind and sun for years. Our wind turbine is rated at 900 watts, or .9kw, it’s just big enough to run the house on a windy day. We should have a 1.5kw unit, but for now, we are making due. There are formulas for figuring power output in watts for a given wind speed, air density and swept area of a wind turbine, the best place to go is the American Wind Energy Associations website. Go to google, type in, "wind turbine power formula," and look for a link to the AWEA.ORG website, that page has all the math work you’ll need for designing the turbine once you have the generator specs in hand. You’re embarking on a fairly complicated project, I don’t want to dissuade you from trying, but there are a lot of turbines out there for sale today for a whole host of locations and requirements. We tried to build our first one, it ran for 4 minutes. The second one kept burning up regulators because the wind was too strong for it. Our current one is working fine, but still has issues from time to time. Good luck with your project, and take care, Rudydoo
The design of AC machines involves far more than simply determining a number of copper coils. A description of the whole process in the depth you’d need to construct one far exceeds the reasonable scope for a YA!
As a first step get yourself a good textbook – e.g. "The performance and design of alternating current machines" by M. G. Say.
Jaclyn Poehlman
I’m a student just trying to learn more about the eco-friendly business and I really enjoyed this. Keep up the great job!