Hello everybody!
Wind energy has been one of the biggest factors contributing towards the energy transition. One of its biggest problems, as opposed to solar panels, is that it generally requires a big investment to setup. Big wind farms, on or off-shore require either big land purchases or marine vessels which are especially equipped to install the turbines. The turbine itself also has a very considerable cost. Furthermore, big wind turbines generate a lot of noise, thus disturbing the environment.

The concept

AURA promises to provide affordable electricity in a convenient, cheap, and easily installable package. The name means “a breeze, a breath of air" in Latin. At a total height of around 3m, it packs a bigger punch than similar options while still being able to be transported with relative ease in a small van or SUV when disassembled.
This project targets two demographics:

-Small villages or towns in underdeveloped countries that could not make the commitment to bigger turbines.

-Small homeowners who would like to considerably reduce their energy bill and carbon footprint.

The product

Aura is a small, one-gear wind turbine with variable pitch. The airfoil used is NACA2412 at both root and tip.

The pitch of the blades is changed by a fixed swash plate mechanism, used in the aerospace industry for propeller aircraft. Apart from being fun to model, this mechanism is very reliable, and transforms the linear motion of the actuator into rotary motion in three axes perpendicular to the linear motion.

The bearings holding the blades in place are slewing bearings, commonly used for this application as they can carry more load than other variants.

And as an addition, blades can be ordered in different colors. This added customization could make the product more appealing for homeowners with different tastes.

Conclusion

I am very happy the contest motivated me to model this! I've been able to both practice my CATIA skills (in particular, I'd never worked with flexible assemblies and they've proved very powerful) and my product design skills. Modeling this has been a great experience, and researching wind turbines has been very fun. Thank you very much to the people who are making this happen!
Cheers,
Miguel

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