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Comment by gowld | Hacker News Reader

> The objective of the present work is to determine the exact integrals for thrust and bending moment coefficients, serving as an addendum to Glauert's original work deriving optimum power coefficients.

I don't think any "wind energy possibilities" were expanded. It looks like the student author gave an elegant exact/analytic computation of measurements that are already computable numerically. Remember that all analytic results are always only "Platonic ideal" approximations of real-world engineering results. It's possible, though not at all mentioned in the paper, that these exact solutions might make engineering computations easier.

As always, the tell is that claims made about the paper, but not in the paper are not to be relied upon. Nowhere does the paper claim to measure any quantiative improvement in rotor performance, not even theoretically potential improvements.

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While not stated, it is implied that this newer, more acurate set of equations, will change the way CFA software does its job. The finite element analyisis that used to be done long hand, is truely intimidating in its complexity, but is still with us, in current sofware. And yes there has been mountains of work done comparing sofware predictions, with wind tunnel tests, and experimental airfoils in service, but those still remain less than ideal. And that this is the first work at revising these primary calculations in a generation, does speak to the skill and determination of the student who has done that work. Work that is so difficult, that ,just doing it put her in an elite class, and finishing it to the satisfaction of her professors and colegues, should be good enough for the rest of us, to at least wait paitently for the next step. It is also exceptional for bieng impervious to utube, infuence hype, or any grab and go, monitizeation, its math, and unpatentable , and also still known as a profesion that is impervious to fakery and deception, so I hope to hear more of this Womans work.

> “Improving the power coefficient of a large wind turbine by just 1% has significant impacts on the energy production of a turbine, and that translates towards the other coefficients that we derived relations for,” she said. "A 1% improvement in power coefficient could notably increase a turbine’s energy output, potentially powering an entire neighborhood."

OP claims this was not written in the paper because it was speculative, not quantitative. Nowhere in the paper did she ever claim to have made an x% improvement over the original work. Not making such claim in the paper itself is a testimony on how the scientific method should be applied. Of course anyone would hope to make a difference in the world, of wind turbine blades, and her comment does just that.

Its just classic HN reductionalism to reduce certain unverifiable claims down to its core principle.

some more equally valid remarks:

"Moving wind turbines just 50km closer to power consumers would decrease transmission loss by .5%"

"Building 102 wind turbines would be a 2% increase over the planned 100"

This is exactly the type of content I love to hate on HN

And finding a gold bar in my backyard would have significant impacts on my bank account.

I don't see a claim that there is an improvement.

This reminds me of the old story about being able to capture just 1% of a market to create a successful startup and how you always have to remember, there are numbers less than 1.

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