Wind turbine
OwnerHendrik A. Baasinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A wind turbine of the type having a rotor (1, 31) with a relatively large number of vanes (3-14, 35-40) mounted one behind the other on a central shaft (2, 30) of the rotor. At least a number of the vanes are mounted for free rotation relative to the central shaft and are coupled to adjacent vanes by a catch device (51, 52, 54, 55). A detecting device (100-105) is provided for detecting impending overload of the rotor, and a vane adjusting device (60-67) is provided which in response to impending overload detected by the detecting device can turn the vanes mounted for free rotation relative to the shaft and relatively to one another so that the vanes become at least partially aligned one behind the other.
Claims24
A wind turbine having a rotor including a plurality of vanes mounted on a shaft and comprising:
- a rotatably mounted central shaft having an axis of rotation;
- a plurality of vanes arranged in sets mounted in axially space relationship on said central shaft;
- at least one of said sets of vanes being freely rotatably mounted on said central shaft for rotation relative thereto;
- at least one of said sets of vanes being non-rotatably mounted on said central shaft for rotation therewith;
- a catch means operatively coupling adjacent sets of vanes together so that rotation of one of said sets rotates at least one adjacent set;
- detecting means for detecting impending overload of said rotor and emitting a signal indicating said overload;
- and
- vane set adjusting means operatively engageable with said at least one set of freely rotatable vanes and operatively connected with said detecting means for rotating said at least one rotatably mounted set of vanes relative to said shaft and said at least one non-rotatably mounted set of vanes to positions between and including a fully extended position of, where said vanes have a maximum angular displacement relative to each other in the direction transverse to the axis of rotation of said shaft, and an axially aligned position said vanes in response to said overload signal of said detecting means.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.