Introduction
South Australia is global leader when it comes to renewable power generation. For many years the majority of our electricity generation has come from renewable resources. By far the largest contributor to this has been wind power. In the Port Augusta region we have had wind turbines installed at the Port Augusta Renewable Energy Park, and also at Lincoln Gap.
Although they seem quite simple, there are a lot of factors that influence the design of wind turbines and getting all of these factors right ensures that maximum power can be extracted from the wind that blows. Like any other engineered design all the possible variables are identified, isolated, and undergo scientific testing optimising a complex system by optimising the parts and processes that it consists of. This is key to the scientific method and engineering design process. |
The video above gives some insights into some of the design choices made for wind turbine blades to help stimulate some of your thinking around this task.
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Design Proposal (10%)
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More detail on this section can be found in the task sheet above, this includes the assessment conditions. In this design phase you will be designing a investigation to optimise one of the variables that impacts wind turbine design. You will do this using the scientific design process. The aim is to design the investigation, receive feedback, and then implement the investigation (with any improvements) to collect data and form your conclusions. As this investigation is individual in it's nature it must be able to be conducted by yourself, and further to this each member of the class must investigate a different factor.
The design proposal includes the following components:
The design proposal includes the following components:
- a statement of an investigable question or hypothesis
- a deconstruction of the problem (this can be done in many ways but involves the identification of variables as well as background research) . If you choose to draw a flowchart you can use websites such as app.diagrams.net/
- an appropriate method designed to obtain primary data, this includes drawing a blank results table.
- a justification of the plan of action
Individual Inquiry (30% Externally Marked)
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More information on this task, including the length and assessment conditions can be found in the file above. This task constitutes the externally marked part of this course and therefore will be sent away for marking rather than being marked by your teacher.
The individual inquiry has two parts:
The report must include:
The individual inquiry has two parts:
- the practical investigation which involves the implementation of the practical (taking into account any feedback from the design proposal)
- a practical report of the findings of the investigation.
The report must include:
- introduction, providing the basis for the investigation
- either a hypothesis with variables, or a solution using an engineering design process
- summary of the design of the investigation or model(s)
- results of the practical investigation and analysis of the results, including identification of trends and linking results to relevant discipline knowledge
- evaluation of the method/model(s) used
- identification of sources of uncertainty
- conclusion with justification and consideration of the limitations of the investigation
- citations and referencing.
Previous Task Examples
2023 - A+ Standard