For Project 1, our team was sent to Calgary, where the mighty Chinook winds from the mountains are a common feature. Our challenge was to design a turbine blade that could be used by residential homeowners to harness the power of these winds for their own power generation.
Our team determined that such a turbine would need to be economical in its design and construction, small and lightweight to fit on rooftops, and most importantly durable to withstand high-pressure winds. As such, our turbine blade design required a lightweight, high-strength material.
In the end, we determined that low-alloy steel was the optimal material for this design, due to its high strength-to-weight ratio and low cost per volume.
