The blades on wind turbines harness energy from the wind using Bernoullis principle, like an airplane wing. The blades spin the shafts to deliver the power.
The Nacelle is what holds the pieces of a wind turbine like the gear box, low- and high-speed shafts, generator, controller, and brake. Nacelles are surprisingly large, roughly the size of the trailer of a semi-truck.
Wind speed both increases and becomes less turbulent higher above the ground; the tower places the turbine high enough to capture wind effectively. Older models use steel lattice structures (like on bridges), they can also be made of concrete. In this model it is made of a hollow tube of steel.
Gears connect the low-speed shaft to the high-speed shaft. This gearing is what allows the high speed shaft to spin faster (often 30x faster) to make the electrical generators more efficient. The new generation of off-shore wind turbines use "direct-drive" generators use a different configuration of magnets) so they do not need gear boxes.
Moving magnets near a loop of wire creates electrical current. All forms of electricity generation other than photovoltaic (solar power) use a generator. Most wind turbines use permanent magnets as opposed to the electromagnets used in most other generators. These permanent magnets mean that wind turbines require significant use of neodymium magnets.
This high shaft rotates quite quickly (1000-1800 rpm) is rotated by the gear box and spins the magnets in the generator.
This shaft is takes energy from the blades and rotates the gears, usually at about 30-60 rpm (roughly once every second or two).
By taking information from the anemometer, the controller tells the machine how to operate. Turbines usually operate when winds blow between 20 and 90 kph (depending on the design). If winds are blowing too slow there is insufficient power in the wind to bother and above the cutoff speed the brakes keep the turbines from getting damaged.
Like brakes on a car, this brake stops the motion.
The rotor is the rotating part of any machine, in this case the rotor is made of the blades and hub.
The controller changes the angle of the blades (the pitch) to get more or less power from the wind to keep the rotor speed within the range machine wants.
The yaw drive takes information from the wind vane and orients upwind turbines when the direction changes. The yaw motor powers the yaw drive to orient the wind turbine to face upwind.
The anemometer is the spinning cups and they tell the controller how fast the wind is blowing. The wind vane provides wind direction information to the yaw drive to orient the turbine to face the wind.
These two pieces are structural supports for the high and low speed turbine. The high speed turbine support (the circle) also offers a place for the brake to be installed.
This cylinder looking container is what covers and protects the generator while the wind turbine is in operation. It has been displaced from the generator for the purposes of this simulation.
There are usually two gears that connect the high and low speed shaft. Due to their sizes relative to one another, the smaller gear will spin faster. In many cases, around 3 times faster.
Thank you for viewing this educational model about horizontal wind turbines. The following are the main controls.
Left Mouse: Rotate
Right Mouse: Pan
Middle Mouse: Zoom
Open: See the interior components of the turbine.
Close: Close the turbine and return to the starting screen.
Speed: Control how fast the turbine spins. Default is 0.
Click: Clicking a component of the turbine will bring up a small description about that part.
This model has been created by Zach Sumners of the Energy Education team. To learn more about this platform please visit https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Main_Page
Click anywhere to close this screen.