Turbine metres

Used only for measuring clean, steady, medium- to high-speed flow of low-viscosity fluids. 

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His sculpture Marsyas completely filled the 150 metre long Turbine HaU of the Tate Modern with a burgundy-coloured PVC/PE membrane, when exhibited in 2002 (Balmond et al, 2003). 

The product of a force and its perpendicular distance firom a point about which it causes rotation or torsion. The unit of torque is the newton metre, a vector product, unlike the joule, also equal to a newton metre, which is a scalar product. A turbine produces a torque on its central rotating shaft. See also COUPLE. 

To illustrate the rapid increase in size of offshore wind turbine blades, LM Wind Power Group, Denmark, have recently developed a 73.5 metre blade manufactured in polymer composites which it was hoped would be installed at Alstom s prototype sites in Europe over the winter 2011-2012 the blades will travel at a speed of more than 320 km/h. A special prototype mould has been produced with a transparent surface that allows the full-scale manufacturing trials to be followed by visual inspection of the critical polyester infusion production (see Chapter 20, Section 20.4.2 for infusion techniques). When LM Wind Power began to produce wind turbine blades in 1978 the blades were 5 metres in length. 

Comment The major noise nuisance is the low-fiequeney, penetrating sound that is emitted when the rotating blades pass the turbine tower low-frequency noise travels further than the audible. So far there has been no success in eliminating this low-frequeney noise, whieh ean continue day and night for extended periods. The elosest that a wind turbine is typieally plaeed to a home is 300 metres or more. At that distanee, a turbine will have a sound pressure level of 43 deeibels. To put that in eontext, the average air conditioner can reach 50 decibels of noise, and most refrigerators run at around 40 deeibels. 

Loos (2011) reported that investigators from Bayer Material Science LLC, USA and Moulded Fibre Glass, Cleveland, USA have developed a prototype wind turbine blade 0.74 metre long manufactured from polyurethane reinforced with carbon nanotubes (CNT PU). The researchers claim that the advanced material has a specific tensile strength of five times and 60 times that of carbon fibre composite and aluminium respectively and is tougher than CFRP furthermore, the stiffer but thinner blades enable maximum energy to be produced. 

Low weight and rotational inertia (a standard 35-40 metre blade for a 1.5 MW turbine weighs 6 to 7 tonnes)... 

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