Fluid Mechanics Applications/B14: Fluid flow in turbine

From earlier days we are using wind power for example in case of wind mills and water mills. They are being powered by the flowing wind in case of wind mills and running water in case of water mills as their name justifies this. In modern days these wind and water mills have been improved and are being used for generating power from the flowing fluid for example Wind turbines and water turbines. And they convert the energy of flowing fluid into usable work with the help of a rotating mechanical device called turbines.

Working of a turbine

Now, we are going to discuss how a turbine extracts energy. As fluid flows through a turbine the two cases arises : ⦁ case of wind turbines: Here, the energy of the flowing wind gets transferred to the turbine according to the Bernoulli’s principle. As the fluid flows over the blade of the turbine, the blades have such design that the velocity of fluid flowing above and below the turbine blades are different and hence creating a pressure difference between above and below the blade and so exerting a net force and giving a rotation to the shaft of the turbine.

⦁ case of water/hydro turbines Here, the energy of running water get transferred according to Newton’s 2nd law of motion. The momentum of running water get transferred to the blades of turbine which in turn rotates the shaft of the turbine.