Windmill or Wind Turbine Theory

submitted by enginedeer007 from self.AskSaidIt

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[–]Zapped 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

A fan blade is not necessarily an airfoil. Propeller and rotor blades are designed for lift. They have a distinct shape to their profile.

Wind turbines generally work in places with maintained wind. If you live in a place with intermittent wind, there are wind turbines with a cylindrical shape that work better for that application.

[–]enginedeer007[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

WHat is an "airfoil"?

[–]Zapped 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

One side of the blade or wing on an aircraft is flat and one side is curved. This forces the air across the curved side to speed up so that both sides reach the trailing edge at the same time (curved side has farther to travel to get there). This causes lower pressure and "pulls" the wing, propeller, rotor in the direction of the lower pressure (think vacuum). You can look up Bernoulli's Principle for more on how this works.