Animated gif from the video, depicting the 1/100 working scale model of Dam-Atoll.
Slideshow, the first slide of which shows a lighthouse that was unserendipitously built on a dome-like base. Because of the shape of the lighthouse's base, the waves around the lighthouse go crazy and surge towards the top of the lighthouse—an inadvertent consequence of wave refraction. The height and power of the waves show very directly how the proper shape of an atoll or island can concentrate enormous amounts of energy into a not-very-large piece of real estate. The slideshow then goes on to present various other aspects of Dam-Atoll.
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Dam-Atoll videos on YouTube. Below, I point out what the various scenes illustrate.
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Video clip showing: a) co-inventor Duane Morrow and a coworker lifting 1/100 working scale model of Dam-Atoll into a flat-bottom tank—the model was so sensitive that the turbine started spinning because the device picked up the slight wave motion generated by the two men in the pool; b) the device generating the waves in the tank; c) the size of the scale model in comparison with a toy boat (no, Mr. Wirt's grandsons never got their toy boat back), and d) wave motion getting turned into wheel motion.
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Principle Inventor L.S. Wirt explaining why the name 'Dam-Atoll' suggested itself for the device.
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Conference on Dam-Atoll featuring speakers Dr. Thomas Daniels (University of Hawaii), Dr. Philip Chow (T.Y. Lin International), Dr. Howard Wilcox (San Diego), and Dr. Robert Cannon (Stanford University). Wilcox: "I mean we saw movies that show that the turbine does turn and everything—hey, that's great." Cannon: "I'll tell you what my intuition tells me. My intuition tells me that one of two things is true...either Les really lucked out and his intuition was so good that he picked all the right numbers the first time, or—what would be very happy—it's not very sensitive to any of those numbers. That is, you could be off by tens of percent and you get about the same efficiency of operation. I suspect that that's probably true. I think he happened onto something that is pretty robust."
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L.S. Wirt, discussing the initial run of the 1/100 scale model of Dam-Atoll."We were enough in the ballpark that the thing took off and it worked like a charm. It worked from the first moment it was put into the water."
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Fourth video clip ending with turbine seen in slow motion.
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Wave Generator designed and built by Duane Morrow.
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Principle inventor of Dam-Atoll, Leslie Spencer Wirt, observing the testing of the 1/100 working scale model (the phase 0 working model). Mr. Wirt has long been renowned for drawing equations in the air with his pipe.
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Video clip showing two toy , the first boat pitching violently (that is, as violently as toy boats can pitch) close to the Wave Generator, the second gently swaying in the "wave shadow" created by Dam-Atoll's absorption of the wave energy created by the Generator. One of the subsidiary benefits of Dam-Atoll consists in its possible use as a means of calming harbor waters. At one point, Mr. Wirt's grandsons, the original owners of the boats, threatened to petition the CEO of Lockheed for their return—to no avail.
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Click on any of the following topics that may catch your eye
Worst Pun Of The Year Every Year
Best And Most Concise Description Of Dam-Atoll
The damndest thing that ever came out of an acoustics lab
Fermat's Principle
The Patent for Dam-Atoll is now in the public domain
The Name Dam-Atoll Tells How It Extracts Ocean Wave Energy
Dam-Atoll An Amalgam Of the Concepts Dam And Atoll
Dams And Kinetic, Potential, and Mechanical Energy
River As Kinetic Energy
Kinetic Energy Transformed To Potential Energy
Potential Energy Transformed Back To Kinetic Energy
Kinetic Energy Turned Into Mechanical Energy
An Atoll Bends And Refracts The Approaching Wave
Wave Velocity
Wave Refraction
When the submerged atoll is dome-shaped, it refracts the wave path to its center
The exact shape of the atoll's dome is critical
the atoll acts as a kind of lense concentrating the wave energy
A Wave's Potential Energy Gets Changed To Kinetic Energy By An Atoll
A wave is nothing but energy
Waves And Potential And Kinetic Energy
A deep-water ocean wave is always half potential and half kinetic energy
Wave is all kinetic energy when it breaks on the center of the atoll
Changing A Wave's Kinetic Energy To Mechanical Energy By Means Of A Vortex
Vortex
Vortex is a fluid flywheel
Dam-Atoll, Vortex, Guide Vanes
This in sum is how Dam-Atoll works
Smoothing out the succession of wave pulses
Advantages Over The Other Ocean Wave Energy Extraction Devices
Dam-Atoll has only one moving part
Thus Dam-Atoll loses no energy in monkey motion
Monkey motion
Competing Ocean Wave Energy Extraction Devices are monkey motion machines
Energy Efficiency
Diffuser Important To Energy Efficiency
Mathematically Optimal Shape Of Dome Crucial To Energy Efficiency
A Future So Bright For Ocean Systems You Will Need Sunglasses
The Patent for Dam-Atoll is now in the public domain
The Opportunity
Leslie Wirt is available for lectures
Leslie Wirt offers consulting services
Video of working scale model of Dam-Atoll
Dam-Atoll Patent
Michael McCormick's Comments On Dam-Atoll
John Isaac's Comments On Dam-Atoll
Links To Books, Articles, And Web Sites Mentioning Dam-Atoll
Excerpts From Scattering And Absorption Of Surface Waves By Arthur's Island
Future Prospects For Dam-Atoll
Dam-Atoll Humor
Dam-Atoll_History
About the inventor of Dam-Atoll, Leslie S. Wirt
Contact Leslie Wirt
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