Field fabrication of solar-thermal powered stream turbines for generation of mechanical power

Providing adequate energy to developing countries is one of the greatest global technical challenges today. Fabrication is undergoing a revolution that parallels the digitization of computation and communications. Emerging affordable, "desktop" fabrication tools are providing the precision and repeatability necessary for regular people to design, manufacture, and install a system to convert solar thermal energy to useful work. In the spectrum of devices that use solar energy, this field-fabricated system exists in a space between crude solar cookers for heating food and complex, expensive photovoltaic cells. Computer control and high precision allows regular people to experimentally converge on a locally-appropriate design and implementation to solve the challenge of providing energy. This thesis describes a field producible, small-scale turbine that uses solar thermal energy to provide mechanical energy. I investigate a solar thermal steam-driven turbine system and build and evaluate several versions in field fabrication lab locations around the world. I consider the efficacy of deployment in rural developing areas.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. Program In Media Arts and Sciences

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Sun, Amy (Amy Teh-Yu)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Neil Gershenfeld.

• Architecture. Program In Media Arts and Sciences

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/37400

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/37400