Engineering Commons^™

Static Balancing Of The Cal Poly Wind Turbine Rotor, Derek Simon

Master's Theses

The balancing of a wind turbine rotor is a crucial step affecting the machine’s performance, reliability, and safety, as it directly impacts the dynamic loads on the entire structure.

A rotor can be balanced either statically or dynamically. A method of rotor balancing was developed that achieves both the simplicity of static balancing and the accuracy of dynamic balancing. This method is best suited, but not limited, to hollow composite blades of any size. The method starts by quantifying the mass and center of gravity of each blade. A dynamic calculation is performed to determine the theoretical shaking force on …

Implementation Of A ¼ Inch Hollow Cathode Into A Miniature Xenon Ion Thruster (Mixi), David Wayne Knapp

Master's Theses

Over the last decade, miniature ion thruster development has remained an active area of research do to its low power, low thrust, and high efficiency, however, due to several technical issues; a flight level miniature ion thruster has proved elusive. This thesis covers the design, fabrication, assembly, and test of an altered version of the Miniature Xenon Ion thruster (MiXI), originally developed by lead engineer Dr. Richard Wirz, at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). In collaboration with Dr. Wirz, MiXI-CP-V3 was developed at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with the goal of implementing of a ¼ inch hollow cathode …