Design Analysis of Vertical Axis Wind Turbine Blade Using Biomimicry

Performance and efficiency of a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine improved by using a modified turbine blade, derived from biological features, by harness more wind energy. The detailed simulations were carried in Q-blade’s X-foil, Java foil and Sim Scale software at low wind speed with bio-mimicable cambered foil add-ons to different biostructure blades such as Maple seed leaf, Eagle wing. Among these simulations, the Corrugated Dragonfly vein FX 63-137 foil shows improved performance over cambered foils and FX 63-37 itself. The Maple-Wing combined blade structure showed an improved lift-drag ratio with a high coefficient of power.

Assessing tree germination resilience to global warming: a manipulative experiment using sugar maple (Acer saccharum)

A climate warming of 2–5°C by the end of the century will impact the likelihood of seed germination of sugar maple (Acer saccharum), a dominant tree species which possesses a restricted temperature range to ensure successful reproduction. We hypothesize that seed origin affects germination due to the species' local adaptation to temperature. We tested this by experimentally investigating the effect of incubation temperature and temperature shifting on sugar maple seed germination from seven different seed sources representing the current species range. Survival analysis showed that seeds from the northern range had the highest germination percentage, while the southern range had the lowest. The mean germination percentage under constant temperatures was best when temperatures were ≤5°C, whereas germination percentages plummeted at temperatures ≥11°C (5.8%). Cool shifting increased germination by 19.1% over constant temperature treatments and by 29.3% over warm shifting treatments. Both shifting treatments caused earlier germination relative to the constant temperature treatments. A climate warming of up to +5°C is shown to severely reduce germination of seeds from the southern range. However, under a more pronounced warming of 7°C, seed germination at the northern range become more affected and now comparable to those found from the southern range. This study states that the high seed germination percentage found in sugar maple at the northern range makes it fairly resilient to the warmest projected temperature increase for the next century. These findings provide forest managers with the necessary information to make accurate projections when considering strategies for future regeneration while also considering climate warming.