There are many types of turbines that use wind to generate energy and electicity,however the darrieus wind generatoris one unlike the others. Instead of using cups to collect the wind by dragging the cups around, this turbine has aerofoils that are vertically mounted onto the framework.
The Darius Wind Turbine was invented by the French Engineer G Darrieus in 1931. It incoorporates a vertical shaft which does not need the wind to be blowing into it. The intersting thing is that you can construct this type of wind generator from parts readily available in your home and hardware store and be able of producing 3000 watts. This type of generator has been tested to be more suitable for sites that do not have really strong winds.
The difference is that the common type o genrator rotates on a horizontal axis however this rotates on a vertical axis. There are many benfits that come by using this type of turbine. Although it does not generate as much torque as a Savonius, it spins a lot faster. By doing this it’s a lot more suited to electricity generation than water pumping or other activities of that nature would be.
Proffesor Paraschivoiu also argued that vertical-axis wind turbines are preferred environmentally compared to conventional horizontal-axis turbines. Take for example the fact that vertical axis wind turbinesactually produce less noise than the standard turbines because the speed ratios that they work at are lower. Because of the fact that the darrieus wind genrators are not self starting, they must have a small powered motor so that the roatation may begin.
Although darrieus wind generators have a lot of benefits, they are not perfect they do have their disadvantages when compared to the horizontal wind generators as well. Although they are not as efficient as the common Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines they do happen to be a lot safer and easier to build not to mention the fact that they handle turbulance a lot better.