Wind turbine generators having wind assisted cooling systems and cooling methods

Patent · Tue Sep 23 00:00:00 EDT 2008

OSTI ID:984517

Bagepalli, Bharat ^[1]; Barnes, Gary R ^[2]; Gadre, Aniruddha D ^[3]; Jansen, Patrick L ^[4]; Jarczynski, Emil D ^[4]; Garg, Jivtesh ^[5]

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1. Niskayuna, NY
2. Delanson, NY
3. Rexford, NY
4. Scotia, NY
5. Cambridge, MA

A wind generator includes: a nacelle; a hub carried by the nacelle and including at least a pair of wind turbine blades; and an electricity producing generator including a stator and a rotor carried by the nacelle. The rotor is connected to the hub and rotatable in response to wind acting on the blades to rotate the rotor relative to the stator to generate electricity. A cooling system is carried by the nacelle and includes at least one ambient air inlet port opening through a surface of the nacelle downstream of the hub and blades, and a duct for flowing air from the inlet port in a generally upstream direction toward the hub and in cooling relation to the stator.

• Research Organization: Midwest Research Institute, Kansas City, MO (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC36-99GO10337
• Assignee: General Electric Company (Schenectady, NY)
• Patent Number(s): 7,427,814
• Application Number: 11/385,730
• OSTI ID: 984517
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

17 WIND ENERGY