Honda Research Institute/99P Labs Team: Keona Edwards, Angelina Lenych, Elliot Burroughs, Ginger Silverman
2025-2026: In collaboration with 99P Labs at Honda Research Institute (HRI), this student team explored rooftop-applicable vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) as an emergent technology for urban renewable energy generation. While VAWTs are well-suited for low-speed, turbulent, and multidirectional wind conditions, they remain underdeveloped in efficiency compared to horizontal axis wind turbines.
This project represents phase 1 of a multiphase effort to design a rooftop-compatible VAWT, focusing on concept development, small-scale prototyping, and preliminary performance evaluation. The team explored over 200 VAWT concepts from commercial technologies, academic literature, and original ideation. Through structured screening, the team narrowed these to four concepts, which they modeled, 3D printed, and tested in a wind tunnel. Based on experimental results, the team selected a helical hybrid configuration combining a Darrieus rotor with an internal Savonius rotor. The team evaluated performance through wind tunnel testing and computational fluid dynamics, incorporating both rooftop wind data analysis and scaling effects. The team’s deliverables included experimental and computational workflows, an economic analysis, and recommendations for future development.