Saint-Gobain Grants Program

Pillar of Sustainability

Saint-Gobain Grants Program is an opportunity to make your creative and innovative ideas that provide a fresh perspective to existing systems a reality with the assistance of up to 1 lakh rupees.   

To be eligible for the grant, your proposals must be a part of at least one of the 5 pillars championed by the Saint-Gobain Grants Program. This blog will focus on The Pillar of Sustainability. This pillar corresponds to Sustainable & Eco-friendly projects; Environmentally responsive innovation, research, and design interventions. We’re giving you access to past proposals in this pillar to help you understand how to submit a successful idea. 

If you are seeking support to fulfill your research, develop prototypes or simply develop your ideas, Saint-Gobain Grants Program is just what you have been looking for! Register for the Grant and submit your application by the 10th of February! Register here:

https://ethosempowers.com/arcause/sggrants2022

You can also join our WhatsApp group “Ethos Fellowship & Grants”  for mentorship opportunities: https://chat.whatsapp.com/Ew0xsSQYYzH2z1sBKOYWuJ

The projects executed under this pillar include Tanki, Placeover (place+discover), Hawai Jahaz 2.0, Revitalising the agariyas: Naturally formed Salt Shelters, GREEN WIND FARM, PRAZIUM – reinforcements with Bamboo, Buoyant Agriculture (Sunderbans), Urban Agriculture Research. 

You can find some of the project proposals below:

1. Dhaval Mistry  Passive Cool 2.0 : An improvised version of traditional passive cooling techniques to curb the use of Air conditioners

2. Sandra Moses  Green Wind Farm: An eco-friendly way to harness a renewable source of energy

You can register too for this Pillar of the Saint- Gobain grant if you have an idea that corresponds to Sustainable & Eco-friendly projects; Environmentally responsive innovation, research, and design interventions.! Here is the link to submit your path breaking idea: https://ethosempowers.com/arcause/sggrants2022 

An example below illustrates a successful application;

Hawai Jahaz 2.0

Tanya Deegoju

Pillar of Sustainability – Saint Gobain Scholarship 2019

The idea of this project is to enhance a building’s capability at sustainability. The current times and incidents in the world (like Amazon fires, melting glaciers, Australia burn-down) have proven the need to buckle up against natural disasters as a result of Global warming. 40% of the world’s energy consumption is because of buildings. They act as major heat exchangers. Hence the drive is to act cleverly so that we use renewable natural resources and save the limited sources.

Proposal: 

Aims at making a façade system to harness the wind power and simultaneously navigate the solar heat effect on energy consumptions inside the buildings due to the cooling load. This clean, highly potential, space efficient and non-polluting (visually as well) idea of using Vertical Axis Micro Wind turbines surely aims to make energy production and saving a domestic activity.

Introduction:

“Energy can neither be created nor be destroyed. It can only be converted from one form into another”. Hence, wind energy is converted from one form to another. Wind energy’s Kinetic Energy is readily converted into Mechanical energy through Wind turbine blades and is further converted into electrical energy using an electrical generator

Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT)

Wind turbines have been studied since the earliest known ancient humans attempted to harness wind energy through diversified means. One of the manners to achieve this goal was through VerticalAxis Wind Turbines (VAWT).

The main advantages of the VAWT are its single moving part (rotor) where no yaw mechanisms are required, its low-wind speed operation and the elimination of the need for extensive supporting tower structures, thus significantly simplifying the design and installation on building structures- window blades, Curtain wall etc. Blades of straight-bladed VAWTs can be of uniform airfoil section and untwisted, making them relatively easy to fabricate or extrude, unlike the blades of HAWTs, which are commonly twisted and tapered airfoils for optimum performance.

Design Approach: 

• Geometry Generation: Choice: NACA 4-series airfoil

The objective of the optimization is to find an aerodynamic shape that for a fixed tip speed ratio would maximize the efficiency of the wind turbine.

• Design Options

• Pre-manufacture Results

The commercial solver ANSYS FLUENT v6.3 is used for this work. FLUENT uses the finite volume method to discretize the integral form of the governing equations

Choice of material : Stainless Steel 

The material has other benefits: Resistance to most forms of corrosion, thus making it an ideal construction material.

Process of Prototype manufacture:

Manufacture: 3D Printing of Option A with minimum thickness of 2 mm in Normal (Base, Fins, Base-cap) and SLA Resin printer (Spine). Maintaining 2 mm was a manufacturing restrain of the 3D printing machine. Possibility of 3D Printing Option B was less and not at all cost efficient although as a design and functionality, it seems more efficient.

Motor-

These motors are simple DC Motors featuring gears for the shaft for obtaining the optimal performance characteristics. They are known as Center Shaft DC Geared Motors because their shaft extends through the center of their gearbox assembly and can function as a generator.

Prototype Details: 

Limitations and Inferences of Prototype: 

1.  Weight- Fins’ load was considerably high so the load on the generator was more which requires more wind energy to generate. Manufacturing with a 0.8-1.2mm thickness or using a CNC Miller can be of benefit.

2. Rotor’s RPM- It’s rigidity did not allow flexible movement. It is rather preferable to use a 1000 RPM Rotor.

3.  Requirement of constant winds to maintain a constant voltage difference for the prototype. If a generator with storage is assimilated together, erratic wind voltages can also be put to use.

Results and Conclusions: 

Preliminary test run- To best visually test the generating potential of the micro wind turbine, an led was used. It gave a positive signal by lighting up at wind speeds of approximately 10-11kmph. The figure below shows the regional wind speed chart. At noon, around 12 pm, the wind speed was around 10kts (16-18kmph).

A few snapshots of voltages generated through erratic (mild and strong non uniform currents) winds. The general average can be calculated to 1.055V. To put things to perspective- To charge a mobile phone with a type B charger, a 5V charger can be used. Thus, it is a feasible option to multiply and use for energy generation.

Thus, on a window of 2.2mx1.5m, 36 Microwind turbines can be composed to give a maximum of 36-40V Power. It can be directly used for supply on storage as sets of 9V or as required. Again, to put things into perspective, Laptop chargers use 19.5V. So plug points for laptops, mobile phones, table fans, study lamps etc can easily be set up.

The Saint-Gobain Grants also has 4 other Pillars that can align with your grant-winning idea!

Check them out to understand where your idea fits in. 

1. The Pillar of Social Responsibility: Socially responsible projects in the domain of architecture, construction, and design; Community-based interventions to solve issues directly affecting them.

2. The Pillar of Socio-Cultural Realm: Current socio-cultural issues; live interventions that have a socio-cultural impact; Heritage impact and awareness; documentation and conservation can also be considered.

3. The Pillar of Digital Technology and Innovation: Innovative digital ideas/initiatives related to architecture, construction, and design that can bring change the way we work

4. The Pillar of New Products, Materials, and Building Technology: Innovation in the form of a new product, material, and/or building technology with respect to architecture, construction, and design.

Once you have a great idea that is a part of one or more pillars, register for the Saint-Gobain grant at https://ethosempowers.com/arcause/sggrants2022 and win a chance to make your innovative idea a reality with the assistance of up to 1 lakh rupees!