Clarkson University
IN-25: Innovation B

A Clarkson aeronautical engineering professor, Ken Visser, has developed a ducted wind turbine and a company to commercialize it, Ducted Turbines International (DTI). DTI is a wind turbine company with a focus to provide the lowest cost per kWh in the small turbine market, reducing the time for return on your investment to half of what it takes for conventional open rotor wind turbines. Visser and his students used experimental and modeling approaches to develop the turbine design. They built experimental test rigs and tested a small scale version in Clarkson's wind tunnel and a full-scale version in a wind tunnel at the University of Waterloo. These results showed promise - DTI’s wind turbine design produces more than 2X the power of a conventional open bladed wind turbine of the same rotor diameter. Testing under ambient conditions was still needed though to attract buyers of this new type of wind turbine. In 2017, a campus vote selected the ducted wind turbine as a project for our annual Sustainability Fund expenditures. Students (and others) are excited about the prospect of a visible and innovative prototype wind turbine on campus. A diverse team of faculty, students, staff and alumni have been working to design, build and install the overall system. Alumni have contributed manufactured components and design of electrical and structural systems. Staff from the sho and facilities engineering have been working hard towards a safe installation and seamless integration into our building electricity system, and students and their instructors have been designing and implementing the inverter, data acquisition system and dashboard display. A few structural delays (and then snow...) have slowed the erection of the turbine, but all other components are ready to go. We look forward to years of research and education capabilities associated with the turbine design, manufacturability, and data analysis as part of our sustainable energy systems, data analytics, power engineering, supply chain and other programs. The company link below has additional information about the project. This project is relevant to UN Sustainable Development Goals 7: Affordable and clean energy. Aspects of this project could count as research, campus as a living lab, campus engagement and clean energy. We have included it as an innovation point due to the intersection of so many of these credits and its evolution from research concept to lab scale testing to prototype testing to commercialization AND its connection to a wide range of campus and community audiences.

https://www.clarkson.edu/solve-problem/maximizing-wind-turbine-efficiency