Project: Wind Power (Java)

Calculating the Energy Produced by a Wind Turbine

Harnessing the power of wind to produce electricity is a growing phenomenon, though the basic technology has been around for years. An inexhaustible resource, wind power can used to provide inexpensive electrical capacity for remote areas and clean, renewable energy for other areas. Wind turbines represent the mechanism by which the power of the wind can be transformed into electricity. Check out the brief video below for more details on how wind power works:

Conventional horizontal wind turbines operate in the reverse of a simple house fan: wind blows, and in doing so it turns the “blades” (propellers) of a wind turbine around a central part called a rotor. The rotor in turn spins a generator, which creates electricity that can then be stored and accessed.Suppose you wanted to harness to power of wind to generate electricity. One question you might want to ask is: what is the amount of power my wind turbine can produce? To answer this question, you will need at least the following information:

The average wind speed in your backyard (in m/s)
The operating efficiency of your wind turbine (in %)
The radius of the blades on your wind turbine (in meters)

To compute the maximum power output for your wind turbine, you would need the following math formulas:

A= πr², which represents the cross-sectional area of a circle (π = 3.14159265).
P_max = 0.5ρAv³, which calculates the maximum available power given the wind speed (ν), cross-sectional area of the blades (A), and the density of the air (ρ = 1.2 kg/m³).

Once you have the maximum available power, computing the actual amount of power (not the maximum) produced by the wind turbine is a matter of determining the amount of power based on the operating efficiency.

Java Project: Computing Wind Power Output

This project will provide you with an introduction to creating and using custom Java classes. At the end of this project, you will…

Develop a Java class with constructors, accessor methods, and mutator methods
Run a simple Java class which functions as a Unit Test for another class
Write code that conforms to a programming style specified by the instructor.

Create a Java class called WindTurbine.java to represent a simple wind turbine. Design your class using the provided Javadoc; remember to only create the methods and data properties specified by the Javadoc (i.e. there is no “main” method). Use the instructor-provided WindTurbineUnitTest.java unit test to test your class (You must not modify this code). Running the Unit Test class should produce the following output:

*** INITIAL VALUES ***

WIND TURBINE:
        Operating Efficiency = 0.00
        Radius = 0.00

WIND TURBINE:
        Operating Efficiency = 0.10
        Radius = 3.00

*** COMPUTING POWER (Initial) ***
Max Power: 0.00 W (Should be 0.00)
Actual Power: 0.00 W (Should be 0.00)

*** COMPUTING POWER (Initial) ***
Max Power: 31491.93 W (Should be 31491.93)
Actual Power: 3149.19 W (Should be 3149.19)

*** MODIFIED VALUES ***

WIND TURBINE:
        Operating Efficiency = 0.59
        Radius = 2.00

*** COMPUTING POWER (Modified) ***
Max Power: 942.48 W (Should be 942.48)
Actual Power: 556.06 W (Should be 556.06)

Deliverables

See the instructor for submission instructions and due date(s).

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