What is a Turbine?
A turbine is a type of engine that can extracts energy from a fluid, such as water, steam, air, or combustion gases. It can be contrasted with a piston engine, which uses a piston instead of a turbine to extract energy. The physical makeup of a turbine is a series of blades, typically made of steel but sometimes ceramic, which can withstand higher temperatures. The fluid goes in one end, pushing the blades and causing them to spin, then gets ejected out the other end. The fluid leaves the turbine with less energy than it had going in – a portion of the difference is captured by the turbine. Turbines are the core of our civilization. Practically every form of electric power is generated by a turbine. When we say coal power, nuclear power, hydrothermal power, etc., we mean using some energy source to agitate a gas which then drives a turbine and generates power. A turbine is one of the most common types of engines, where an engine is defined simply as something that takes an input and ge
A turbine is a wheel with blades that is turned by air, steam, or water. Wind turbines: A child’s pinwheel is a turbine. Windmills are powered by air. Turbo-jets force hot gases onto blades to produce spin. Steam turbines: Coal, oil, gas, or nuclear fission create heat to turn water into steam. The steam is forced though a nozzel (jet) directed towards blades on a shaft creating spin. Water turbines: Water wheels were known to ancient cultures. Turbines were first developed in the late 1700’s to produce more efficient power. A dam on a stream creates a reservoir (pond or lake) of water. The Stockdale Dam is approximately 5 feet high. Water is diverted from the reservoir to the mill turbines by a race (channel). The Stockdale Mill race is concrete, it channels water behind the parappet at the north end of the dam. A flume is where the water accesses the turbine. A grate seperates the race from the flume to catch debris (trash, limbs, ice) from entering the flume. The Stockdale Mill flum
