仿生无桨叶风力发电机（在线收听）

仿生无桨叶风力发电机

Energy created by conventional three-blade wind turbines is cheap, sustainable and pollution-free. But according to current estimates, their fast-moving blades kill up to 300,000 birds annually in the U.S.

三叶风力发电机物美价廉，可持续使用且无污染。但根据最近的一次预测显示，美国每年因风叶而死亡的鸟类数量达到了30万只。

That could change with a bladeless wind converter called Saphonian, designed by Tunisian engineer Anis Aouni. He studied ancient sailboats and the movements of birds and fish to develop a parabolic dish that rotates in a peculiar pattern while catching the wind like a ship's sail.

一个名叫“Saphonian”的无桨叶风力发电机能够改变这一切，该发电机的设计者为突尼斯设计师阿尼斯·奥尤尼。他对古代帆船技术，鸟类和鱼类的运动方式进行了研究，并发明出了能够通过特殊方式转动的抛物柱面反射器，造型酷似船帆。

It's like a big 'eight' in space. It's a movement that we can find in nature. That's why I told you that Saphonian is richened by biomimetics . Because we find the same movement in fish tails when they are moving, or in birds' wings.

它形似数字八。我们能在自然中找到这种运动方式。这就是为什么我说“Saphonian”是通过仿生学发明而成。因为鱼尾和鸟翼也有着相同的运动方式。

The bladeless converter creates less noise than traditional wind turbines and does not suffer from the gyroscopic effect, which makes it easier to adjust to changes in wind direction. The prototype is a little more than 1 meter in diameter, but computer models show it is scalable to bigger sizes.

比起传统发电机，无浆发电机的噪声更小，并不会造成陀螺效应，从而更加能够对风向做出改变。样品的直径为一米多，通过电脑模型得知，它还能够增大体型。

Aouni hopes it eventually will be able to turn 80 percent of wind energy into electricity.

奥尤尼希望它能够最终转换80%的风能。

In practice, we reached 1.7 times the performance of a traditional wind turbine. Economically, it is a machine that costs much less than an equivalent wind turbine.

实际上，该发电机的效能是传统的1.7倍。从经济效益上讲，它比同等发电机更廉价。

Tunisian company Saphon Energy, which developed the prototype, has won several awards for the new turbine, including support from Microsoft’s initiative to help African startup companies.

突尼斯公司“Saphon Energy”所研发的这款模型已荣获多座大奖，包括获得微软扶助非洲新兴企业项目的支持。