As an elementary school student, Shawn Frayne can remember watching film of Galloping Gertie, the famed Tacoma Narrows Bridge that twisted and seemingly shook itself to pieces because of a stiff wind.

As an inventor, Frayne is gaining accolades for taking the phenomenon underlying that disaster and generating electricity.

Frayne has come up with a wind generator that may be the first of its kind, operating off of the wobbles and vibrations produced by wind blowing across a belt-like surface to produce energy.

His Kaimuki-based Humdinger Wind Energy LLC has quietly been improving on his initial designs and setting its sights on a previously untouched area of small wind-energy devices that can be used in everything from lighting in rural villages in Third World countries to traffic sensors on the world's busiest highways.

"We think we have something that has applications for the whole world," said Frayne, speaking from Hong Kong, where he's doing research and development work.

"I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops in the coming year."

Already, Frayne, who turns 28 this month, has garnered a Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award and was a finalist in the Stone Curry Design Prize for breakthrough design solutions and also was a finalist for the California Clean Tech Open award.

Frayne named the small-scale power generator the Windbelt and has been spotlighted in Forbes, Discover magazine, National Public Radio and Business Week.

"Shawn is one of those engineers who is incredibly inventive and brilliant and has a purpose," said Josh Schuler, executive director of the Lemelson-MIT Program that recognizes and cultivates inventors.

"He's really excited about solving complex problems ... maybe helping people who are less fortunate."

HOW IT BEGAN

Frayne is currently spending about half of his time in Hong Kong doing research and development work as he readies the Windbelt for production in China. But Frayne sees Humdinger Energy becoming more prominent locally. Frayne said future work here include some research efforts if technology tax credits remain unchanged, or installing wind generators here as the state makes a renewable energy push.

The birth of Frayne's Windbelt came in 2004 after he worked with other Massachusetts Institute of Technology students on problems faced by residents of a rural fishing village in Haiti. While the students were searching for ways to convert agricultural waste into fuel, Frayne noticed another yawning need of the villagers who live far from any electrical grid.

Most of the locals used kerosene lamps to light their homes, an unhealthy and costly energy alternative for the villagers. Frayne set out to solve the dilemma by setting out several constraints — first, the solution had to cost $10 or less.

It also had to be easy to build and repair, include a battery system, and kick out enough electricity to power small LED lights at wind speeds of 5 to 14 miles an hour.

While the village had enough wind, Frayne discovered that wind turbines can't be economically designed on a small scale. That's when he recalled the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and set about designing what apparently is a completely new wind generator.

The secret was in harnessing something called "aeroelastic flutter," or the phenomenon that famously ripped apart the suspension bridge crossing the Puget Sound in 1940. Frayne downplays the phenomenon's complex-sounding name, noting it simply is a "fancy name for something fluttering in the wind."

HOW IT WORKS

Much like children might cradle a leaf of grass in their hands and blow to create a sound by the vibrating grass blade, so does wind vibrate the mylar-coated taffeta straps or belts that are employed in Frayne's design.

Near the ends of the straps, where they attach to a frame or housing, are magnets that oscillate between coils, creating an electric pulse. The elegant design, when coupled with some cheap parts came in under $10.

"He took this phenomenon of aeroelastic flutter and harnessed it," Schuler said.

"He harnessed it at such a small and effective scale that it really has some pretty broad applications."

But Frayne is going beyond that design to look at other applications. He readily acknowledges the Windbelt can't compete on a large scale with behemoth wind turbines at this time. Such machines have been around for more than two centuries, during which time engineers have refined and increased their efficiency.

Peter Schwartz, a physics professor at the California Polytechnic State University, said Frayne's technology aren't competitive with wind turbines that spin out a megawatt of power or more. Such 1.5-megawatt and 2.5-megawatt turbines are planned for installation around Hawai'i as the state seeks large-scale windfarms to help wean it off of imported oil that fires most electric utility generators in Hawai'i.

Schwartz said he understands Frayne's Windbelt converts about 10 percent of wind power into electricity. Large turbines, by comparison, are several times more efficient.

"But when you try to scale them down to a small size, the turbine efficiency drops to about 1 percent," said Schwartz in an e-mail.

"So, I say that the Windbelt has a niche in small wind power."

As in people using them for a variety of small power options, including perhaps using them on residential rooftops.

The market is wide open since no one has been able to figure a way to produce highly efficient small wind turbines. Frayne is working on a cell phone-sized Windbelt that can spit out 3 to 10 milliwatts and another larger model known as the Windcell capable of generating 1 to 10 watts.

"It's simple and elegant," said Schuler, noting the designs may have a broad impact on energy generation.

"It's a win-win for either an industrialized country or for a developing country."

The smaller Windbelt is seen as having broad applications in providing power to wireless sensors monitoring air pollution on smokestacks, traffic on busy highways, train operations and countless other tasks.

HOW IT'S USED

The larger model, which is about a meter in length, also will have a range of uses, especially since Frayne sees it being used like a module, stacked and linked so they generate larger amounts of power. The arrays could be installed on cellphone towers currently powered by diesel oil generators in China and India or on rooftops in developed nations just like photovoltaic panels on business or residential rooftops.

It's that last possibility that may allow the Windbelt to be used in large applications. Just like 10-watt photovoltaic cells that can be linked together to generate thousands of watts, so can his invention, Frayne said.

"What ultimately matters is cost efficiency, and the Windbelt will meet or beat the cost-effectiveness of large-scale turbines," Frayne said.

"And on a cost/watt basis, we will be three to four times less than that of solar photovoltaic."

Frayne said the per-watt cost for some of the models is around $2. He and other engineers are working to reduce this further to make the generation costs competitive with those paid by utility customers paying for electricity generated with coal.

He sees the smallest version of his technology coming to market in a year; the Windcell's commercialization might be 18 to 24 months away.

Frayne is also working on larger versions prototypes with the Boston-based Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group in Xela, Guatemala. If the researchers were able to make a breakthrough on costs with larger-scale versions, the possibilities for the Windbelt would expand.

Think about a Windbelt between a mountain pass in a rural area, or between towers on a suspension bridge.

Frayne acknowledges such thoughts may be fanciful since the world of invention is littered with projects that couldn't be produced in mass quantities or scaled to larger capacities successfully. Detractors question what happens in hurricane-force winds and whether a stiff wind would tear apart a Windbelt just like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

There, too, is the fact that Humdinger is just one of several wind power proponents who are working on innovative designs in the sub-1-megawatt category.

Still, Frayne marvels at how far he and a handful of other engineers at Humdinger have come in a few short years. Half of Humdinger's staff has Hawai'i ties and includes his uncle, Jerry Chun, a former attorney who handles patent work and business affairs.

"That has been done in such a short period of time indicates there's additional potential to be extracted from this technology," he said.