Talk:Savonius wind turbine

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has anyone tried adjusting the tilt of the blades as speed increases?

There is no merit in doing so with the Savonius because it relies totally on the differential drag between the two halves. Tilting the blades doesn't really affect drag significantly. Perhaps you'tre thinking of the Darrieus wind turbine which has aerofoil-shaped blades and relies on lift rather than drag. In such a turbine, tilting the blades cyclically can give worthwhile improvements, and has been tried on a small scale. Unfortunately the Darrieus doesn't scale up all that well, not because of the aerodynamics but because of simple centrifugal and cyclic lift forces, which require substantial mechanical structure to withstand - adding cyclic pitch control into the mix would make for a complex and problematic structural design. However, since helicopters have even more complex blade control and they seem to work, the problems are probably solvable, but the current view seems to be that Darrieus type designs are not worth pursuing when the more conventional propellor type is a more understood and mature technology, and which overall gives better results in theory and practice. Graham 23:23, 25 August 2005 (UTC)