Students design windmill
Mechanical engineering students of the Government College of Engineering, Tirunelveli, working on the windmill designed and fabricated by them.The Government College of Engineering, Tirunelveli, will save Rs.15,000 a year in electricity expenditure in the years to come, thanks to the windmill designed and fabricated by 12 final-year mechanical engineering students and to be installed on the college premises. When a team of students, led by R. Prem, were asked to submit their final- year project, they decided to present a ‘towering gift’ to the institution. After lengthy discussions, they zeroed in on a windmill with a capacity of 2 KW, since the sprawling campus enjoyed a reasonable wind velocity throughout the year, and an optimum of 8 metre a second during June to August. While Prem, K. Duraisamy Pandian and P. Rameshkumar designed three 2.44- metre-long blades, C. Sethupathi, T.K. Krishnaswamy Balaji and R. Prabhakaran fabricated the lattice tower. The electrical circuits and generators were readied by C. Sai Vignesh, K. Sundarakani and Durai Murugan. M. Murali Krishnan, M. Mathankumar, A. Samson Fredrick Manoj and D. Saravanan designed and fabricated the step-up gear box. Two sensors implanted in the windmill will control the entire system and the uniquely-designed yaw brake arrangement will change the direction of the fiberglass reinforced plastic blades.Since the fabrication of all vital parts has been completed, the 25-metre-high wing turbine generator, is likely to be installed in the next couple of days.
