Question

Wind energy is gaining increased attention, so there is in turn an increased interest in windmill technology. Because the windmill blades (vanes) rotate about a central axis, one of the most important physical properties of a windmill is its moment of inertia. Given is a picture of a typical windmill, where the geometry and center of mass of one of the vanes is illustrated. If the moment of inertia about axis A is 445 kg·m2 and about axis B is 10800 kg·m2, calculate the moment of inertia about the axis of rotation for the entire rotating assembly. The mass of each vane is 105 kg . The distance from the center of mass of the vane to axis B is ?1=3.05 m . The distance from the center of mass of the vane to the center of the windmill hub is ?2=4.73 m . (Ignore the hub and assume the vanes are flat.)

Answer 1