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Clean Power

Basing their work on decades of wind energy research and experience, Sandia engineers are creating several concept designs, running those designs through modern modeling software and narrowing those design options down to a single, most-workable design for a VAWT turbine-blade. Results aren’t in, but the early favorite for further testing is the Darrieus design. (Illustration by Josh Paquette and Matt Barone).

Offshore Use of Vertical-Axis Wind Turbines Gets Closer Look by Sandia Labs

August 2nd, 2012 | by Glenn Meyers

Do the best offshore wind turbines operate with a horizontal or vertical-axis mechanism? That question is being reexamined by Sandia National Laboratories’ wind energy researchers, who are now re-evaluating vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWTs) to help solve some of the problems of generating energy from offshore breezes using horizontal-axis wind turbines (HAWTs)