Where is turbine used?
Turbines are used in wind power, hydropower, in heat engines, and for propulsion. Turbines are extremely important because of the fact that nearly all electricity is produced by turning mechanical energy from a turbine into electrical energy via a generator.
What is the best blade shape for a wind turbine?
The Best Wind Turbines and Blade Design Their blades are flat, rounded, or curved. In generating electricity, a horizontal-axis turbine with a three-blade design is most efficient for energy production.
How are wind turbines designed?
The majority of wind turbines have a horizontal axis: a propeller-style design with blades that rotate around a horizontal axis. Horizontal axis turbines are either upwind (the wind hits the blades before the tower) or downwind (the wind hits the tower before the blades).
How does a steam turbine work?
In simple terms, a steam turbine works by using a heat source (gas, coal, nuclear, solar) to heat water to extremely high temperatures until it is converted into steam. As that steam flows past a turbine’s spinning blades, the steam expands and cools.
What is a steam turbine?
The steam turbine is a form of heat engine that derives much of its improvement in thermodynamic efficiency from the use of multiple stages in the expansion of the steam, which results in a closer approach to the ideal reversible expansion process.
How does a superheated steam turbine work?
Superheated steam (or dry saturated steam, depending on application) leaves the boiler at high temperature and high pressure. At entry to the turbine, the steam gains kinetic energy by passing through a nozzle (a fixed nozzle in an impulse type turbine or the fixed blades in a reaction type turbine).
What is a reaction turbine?
In the reaction turbine, the rotor blades themselves are arranged to form convergent nozzles. This type of turbine makes use of the reaction force produced as the steam accelerates through the nozzles formed by the rotor. Steam is directed onto the rotor by the fixed vanes of the stator.
What is the steam used in a power plant?
Most central stations are fossil fuel power plants and nuclear power plants; some installations use geothermal steam, or use concentrated solar power (CSP) to create the steam. Steam turbines can also be used directly to drive large centrifugal pumps, such as feedwater pumps at a thermal power plant .