The TRIZ Chronicles: TRIZ Analysis of the O-Wind Turbine

A Wind in the Door

TRIZ Chronicles
Inventive Principles
Contradictions
James Dyson Awards
Author

Arvind Venkatadri

Published

March 1, 2023

Modified

August 2, 2024

Abstract
Is there a cheap and effective way to generate power using the Wind, right in your home?

Introduction

Here we go with another of my TRIZ Chronicles ! The earlier editions are here: Lawrence of Arabia, Spotify, and the Great Bubble Barrier.

This is another piece stems from my teaching a course on Creative Thinking and Problem Solving based on TRIZ, titled Play and Invent, over the past 8 years or more at the Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design, and Technology and now at DSU School of Commerce & Management Studies, both in Bangalore, INDIA.

Power from your Balcony

What do you think of this innovation?


This solution to urban “micro-power” generation has won numerous awards, most notably the James Dyson Award in 2018. The inventors are Nicolas Orellana and Yaseen Noorani.

Without further ado, let us do a TRIZ Analysis of this remarkable invention.

A TRIZ Analysis of the Dyson O-Wind Generator

For a TRIZ workflow, we proceed as before:

  • First, using the method described in Open Source TRIZ, we identify knobs or parameters within the situation
  • We see how turning these could lead to identifying a Statement / Cause for a Problem in the form of a Contradiction.
  • Re-word the plain English Contradiction into TRIZ Parameters and look it up in the Contradiction Matrix. Obtain the Inventive Principles.
  • Apply these Inventive Principles into your Problem and solve it.

In the video itself, we heard about how electrical power consumption centers are the urban areas and these are far away from the generation sites. This leads to capital costs in HT Transmission equipment; we go to HT transmission to reduce losses on the way. This is already a Contradiction, which we might solve using Segmentation to arrive at Local Generation of Power. Local generation is a good idea to reduce these costs. This leads easily to Solar Panels on rooftops for example. Again while this may be cheaper than the electrical distribution system, it still uses a fair bit of capex and space and is centralized per building. Can we take Segmentation even further and think of a hyper-local household-based power generation unit, using the Wind?

What would be the problems with using Wind based power generation around the home? Here below is a quick Ishikawa Diagram to help us identify the Parameters of this Problem:

Looking at this Diagram, with the aspects identified, we could pair them off and see how they affect one another. In doing so, we could make up several problem. Let us state at some of our Problems: I have marked some of these with question marks since I am using imagination here and not direct primary research or information to formulate these. Note that some these may sound naive, but that is exactly way to start!

  1. I would like to have access my generator, but it needs to be not too close to the walls for it to harness the wind.
  2. How to tap the power from the generator? What if the connection wires get twisted?
  3. Do I need a conventional Commutator? Won’t that be heavy?
  4. What voltage and current will I get? Will it be compatible with my 230V AC mains?

As you can see, many different problems and contradictions await our attention. Let us cut to the chase and state perhaps the most interesting problem (to me!) that the inventors have solved as demonstrated in the video above. We will state this as an Administrative Contradiction(AC) in plain English:

Administrative Contradiction

AC: Winds help to generate power by making something rotate, but winds can change direction and slow down the existing rotation.

What would an IFR be in this situation? How “unreasonable” can we be? Let us try:

Ideal Final Result

Torque must be in one direction only (irrespective of wind direction)

Unidirectional Assumption

I have made a strong assumption here about the the unidirectional movement: the main intent is for the rotating generator to be able to harness winds from any direction to establish or continue rotation in one direction (CW or CCW). Alternating current power generation is in principle immune to direction of rotation.

Let us take our AC and convert it into a Technical Contradiction(TC), keeping this IFR in mind. We will look at the 48 TRIZ Parameters in the TRIZ Contradiction Matrix(PDF) and see which Parameter we want to improve, while not worsening another. Here is what we can obtain. We will analyze the Contradiction both ways1:

Technical Contradictions
  • TC 1: Improve (15)Force/Torque while not worsening (3)Angle/Length of Moving Object
  • TC 2: Improve (3)Angle/Length of Moving Object while not worsening (15)Force/Torque

Again we have chosen the TRIZ Parameters based on our IFR. Other metaphoric TRIZ Parameters that may suggest themselves are 12(Duration of Action on a Moving Object), 14(Speed), and (40)Harmful Effects Acting on the System.

Is there a Physical Contradiction(PC)2 possible here?

Physical Contradiction

The Rotor must yield and not yield to the Wind at the same time. In other words, the rotor must be “porous and non-porous”3 to the wind at the same time.

Let us now apply the TCs to the Contradiction Matrix and obtain the TRIZ Inventive Principles.

Solving the Technical Contradiction

Let us take the both the TC-s into the Contradiction Matrix and arrive at the list of TRIZ Inventive Principles. Here is what the Matrix suggests:

For TC-1:

  1. 17(Another Dimension) !!

  2. 4( Asymmetry)

  3. 14(Curvature) !!!

  4. 10(Preliminary Action)

    and with TC-2:

  5. 3(Local Quality)

  6. 9(Preliminary Anti-Action)

  7. 35(Parameter Change)

Hmm…based on the PC, we may have expected a Separation in Space solution, suggested by Curvature, Another Dimension and Asymmetry. Viewing these Inventive Principles as we Generalized Solutions, we try to map these back into the Problem at hand. In keeping with the metaphoric/analogic way of thinking that TRIZ embodies, I deliberately use many visual hints here from math, physics, geography, and biology.

  1. (14)Curvature: Hmm…nothing new here, or is there? Of course the rotor has to be curved and kind of sphere-like….

  2. 17(Another Dimension): A near-spherical thing has really only one dimension..the radius. And that points in all directions / dimensions! Should there be changes in radius then? Should the radius change create bumps ( positive change ) or depressions ( negative change?) Should the bump be like a welt, and the depression like a groove? How can a bump or a depression itself be curved, as 14(Curvature) suggests?

  3. 4(Asymmetry): The bumps or depressions…..they have to be asymmetric? So….not like longitudes and nor latitudes, but may be like those great circles.

  4. 3(Local Quality): OK, the bumps or depressions are already “local”….can we go further? Here is where I stretch and go hyper-local: Should there be structures on or inside them, like flaps or fins or vanes? How can these be asymmetric, then? By acting like miniature flaps or trapdoors, that yield / fall flat when pushed in one direction and stand up / resist when pushed in the other direction…somewhat like a dog or cat’s fur? Then push and pull work differently…

    From Flaps to ….Funnels!

    Making these flaps movable as the above paragraph seems to suggest would probably not be a good idea, from an engineering standpoint. But once we have the image of wind + flaps / fins / vanes and differences in pressure or movement, the Bernoulli Principle and Venturi effect suggest themselves immediately!! So what could this vane-fin-fur-flap thingy be then? Oh good heavens, a funnel !!!

    Venturi Effect{HappyApple, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons}

    So each of those bumps are segmented into funnel-like structures that cause differences in air pressure when the wind blow. These differences are unidirectional and create movement/rotation! And because the bumps are curved along the surface of the sphere, and they are not parallel to one another (asymmetry), at least some of the internal funnels will always be “in the wind” 4, and capable of creating rotation using Bernoulli/Venturi effect!

  5. 9(Preliminary Anti-Action): What do we wish to guard against? Counter acting wind forces. Well, the funnel structures work only with wind blowing into the broad opening and so we are fine!

So finally we could just imagine a spherical object, mounted on a spindle, with spiral arc-like bumps at different places on the surfaces. Within the arc-like bumps are funnel-like structures that create differentials in pressure when subject to the wind, and that creates rotation. Since the funnels are asymmetric by nature, our final rotation is unidirectional. Whew! ( Yes, that “whew” is also very suggestive here 😃!)

Using TRIZ Separation Principles

As Hipple explains, there is frequently an underlying physical parameter, such as length, breadth, weight, or energy, or speed for example that lies at the root of our Technical Contradiction.

Our IFR states that we want the rotor to yield one way and to not yield when pushed the other way so it needs to be both hard and soft at the same time. This is a Physical Contradiction! In this case we can easily see and application of Separation in Space and also Separation on Condition. However I think in this case, it would not be easy to arrive at the Solution using just these.

That’s a wrap! In the next episode of the #TRIZ Chronicles, I wish to step even further out of my area of expertise and dabble in HR! I think looking at some of the institution-building ideas in Ricardo Semler’s book, Maverick would be a good idea!

References

  1. Jack Hipple, The Ideal Result and How to Achieve It. Springer; 2012th edition (June 26, 2012)
  2. Valery Souchkov, Defining Contradictions. http://www.xtriz.com/Training/TRIZ_DefineContradiction_Tutorial.pdf
  3. Open Source TRIZ: Making Contradictions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cah0OhCH55k
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Footnotes

  1. The Contradiction Matrix is not quite symmetric, so stating the Contradiction both ways allows us to access a slightly larger set of Inventive Principles from two cells of the Matrix.↩︎

  2. Arriving at Physical Contradictions is not always easy! If we can, then there are a very crisp set of TRIZ Separation Principles that we can apply to solve the Problem.↩︎

  3. So the Rotor must have…holes? How do holes “work in one direction only”? We will see…↩︎

  4. Mathematically, the Wind direction vector will be (nearly) normal to the aperture of some funnel.↩︎