Turbine | Definition, Types, & Facts | Britannica
WEBturbine, any of various devices that convert the energy in a stream of fluid into mechanical energy. The conversion is generally accomplished by passing the fluid through a system of stationary passages or vanes that alternate with passages consisting of finlike blades attached to a rotor.
Wind turbine | Renewable Energy, Efficiency & Design
WEB4 days ago — wind turbine, apparatus used to convert the kinetic energy of wind into electricity. Wind turbines come in several sizes, with small-scale models used for providing electricity to rural homes or cabins and community-scale models used for providing electricity to a small number of homes within a community. At industrial scales, many …
Turbine - Steam, Efficiency, Power | Britannica
WEBTurbine - Steam, Efficiency, Power: A steam turbine consists of a rotor resting on bearings and enclosed in a cylindrical casing. The rotor is turned by steam impinging against attached vanes or blades on which it exerts a force in the tangential direction.
Gas-turbine engine | Design, Components & Applications
WEBGas-turbine engine, any internal-combustion engine employing a gas as the working fluid used to turn a turbine. The term also is conventionally used to describe a complete internal-combustion engine consisting of at least a compressor, a combustion chamber, and …
History of steam turbine technology - Encyclopedia Britannica
WEBTurbine - Steam, Technology, History: The first device that can be classified as a reaction steam turbine is the aeolipile proposed by Hero of Alexandria, during the 1st century ce. In this device, steam was supplied through a hollow rotating shaft to a hollow rotating sphere.
Turbine - Staging, Efficiency, Power | Britannica
WEBTurbine - Staging, Efficiency, Power: Only a small fraction of the overall pressure drop available in a turbine can be extracted in a single stage consisting of a set of stationary nozzles or vanes and moving blades or buckets.
wind power - Encyclopedia Britannica
WEBSep 17, 2008 — wind power, form of energy conversion in which turbines convert the kinetic energy of wind into mechanical or electrical energy that can be used for power. Together with solar power and hydroelectric power, wind power is one of the most widely utilized forms of renewable energy.
turbine summary | Britannica
WEBA turbine looks like a large wheel with many small radiating blades around its rim. There are four broad classes of turbine: water (hydraulic), steam, wind, and gas. The most important application of the first three is the generation of electricity; …
Gas-turbine engine - Compressor, Turbine, Combustor | Britannica
WEBGas-turbine engine - Compressor, Turbine, Combustor: Early gas turbines employed centrifugal compressors, which are relatively simple and inexpensive. They are, however, limited to low pressure ratios and cannot match the efficiencies of …
Jet engine | Design, Types, & Functionality | Britannica
WEBSep 6, 2024 — The prime mover of virtually all jet engines is a gas turbine. Variously called the core, gas producer, gasifier, or gas generator, the gas turbine converts the energy derived from the combustion of a liquid hydrocarbon fuel to mechanical energy in the form of a high-pressure, high-temperature airstream.