Traction Kite, Flywheel, and the Anchor

shorttyd

1 W
Joined
Mar 25, 2012
Messages
59
Location
Janesville, WI or Waukesha, WI
This is not exactly the idea for an electric watercraft, it is mostly wind and wave powered. This would be like a catamaran or a sail boat.
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(The little U joints are on the flywheel because it is a gyro. Wave energy is not captured there. It is captured by reeling.)

I want to use the traction kite and the sinker to rip the flywheel. The traction kite is flown upward and the sinker is released simultaneously. Power would be delivered to the flywheel through two cone mesh CVTs. Then, the flywheel will turn the prop through another cone mesh CVT.
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Traction kite generators can access winds that are much higher and much more powerful than the sail. The wind pulls the kite outward and the line spins the flywheel. To retrieve the kite, two lines are slacked and it only requires a fraction of the power coming down. At sea I have the additional advantage of wave power. As the boat rises I capture that wave power while reeling in the kite. I only reel the kite as we rise on the wave, I use a three axis accelerometer to control reeling.

The sinker is only wave power. If reeling in the kite captures the energy of the wave as it is rising, the sinker captures the energy of the wave as it is falling. The sinker is a hydrofoil. When it is released its potential energy becomes kinetic energy spinning the flywheel. The sinker at the bottom will turn over so that it foils water in the upward direction. As the boat falls, the line is reeled. The sinker has inertia and is resistant to decent through the water.
 

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The sail idea looks cool. I've seen the basic idea before for power generation. A second kite could be used to winch in the first folded kite while generating some power it's self, and eliminating the need to tap the boat's stored power.

The anchor idea I'm not so sure about. It seems like the weight's equivalent in water displacement plus the drag on the hull would be more than the power it could produce. The rope alone would be a significant drag. Figure 100 feet of 1" rope would have a frontal area of 1 square yard, with a COD of ~.5. It would be interesting to see the math behind something like that.
 
As someone who straps directly up 12+ square meter kites I can tell you this will be quite an interesting battle with control. :)

Traction kites generally do not have a lot of climbing power. You are going to have much better efficiency and fun just building a kite boat and leaving the sinker idea out of it.
 
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