Re: Help my neighbour's kid with his school project...
- From: Clifford Heath <no@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:32:54 +1100
_ wrote:
Might be too close to submission date to re-work the mechanics - but I'll
pass that idea along just in case.
Has anyone done the math to calculate the actual power available from
such a device? You can't get a force greater than the displacement of
your float, and the distance of travel is the tide height. Unless your
float is just a few cm thin, you'll only get that each twelve hours.
Yes, I know that the tide both rises and falls in that time, but you
need a very broad flat float if you're going to generate power in both
directions.
The tidal flow varies from 0.5m to 1.5m, averaged across the globe.
If your tide heights are 3x that, you can generate an average power
of (displacement*3m/12 hours) = 0.68 watts per tonne of displacement.
Got some spare 50,000 tonne ships to use as floats? You'll get 34KW
out of each one. In the meantime, each will probably lose more steel
to rust than the energy in the coal used to make that steel.
Not very impressive - I'm not surprised you're having trouble getting
enough voltage from your toy. But thanks for playing...
Clifford Heath.
.
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