How turbines work: An introduction from Explain that Stuff!

What is a turbine?

Gas turbine

A windmill is the simplest kind of turbine: a machine designed to capture some of the energy from a moving fluid (a liquid or a gas) so it can be put to use. As the wind blows past a windmill's sails, they rotate, removing some of the wind's kinetic energy (energy of movement) and converting it into mechanical energy that turns heavy, rotating stones inside the mill. The faster the wind blows, the more energy it contains; the faster the sails spin, the more energy is supplied to the mill. Adding more sails to the windmill or changing their design so they catch the wind better can also help to capture more of the wind's energy.

The key parts of a turbine are a set of blades that catch the moving fluid, a shaft or axle that rotates as the blades move, and some sort of machine that's driven by the axle. In a modern wind turbine, there are typically three propeller-like blades attached to an axle that powers an electricity generator. In an ancient waterwheel, there are wooden slats that turn as the water flows under or over them, turning the axle to which the wheel is attached and usually powering some kind of milling machine.

Photo: A prototype gas turbine produced for a high-efficiency power plant. Each of the metal wheels is a separate turbine stage designed to extract a bit more energy from a high-speed gas. Photo taken at the National Energy Technology Laboratory, Morgantown courtesy of US Department of Energy.

Impulse and reaction turbines

Turbines work in two different ways described as impulse and reaction—terms that are often very confusingly described (and sometimes completely muddled up) when people try to explain them. So what's the difference?

Impulse turbines

In an impulse turbine, a fast-moving fluid is fired through a narrow nozzle at the turbine blades to make them spin around. The blades of an impulse turbine are usually bucket-shaped so they catch the fluid and direct it off at an angle or sometimes even back the way it came (because that gives the most efficient transfer of energy from the fluid to the turbine). In an impulse turbine, the fluid is forced to hit the turbine at high speed. Imagine trying to make a wheel like this turn around by kicking soccer balls into its paddles. You'd need the balls to hit hard and bounce back well to get the wheel spinning—and those constant energy impulses are the key to how it works.

Pelton water wheel Artwork showing how an impulse turbine works
Photo: A Pelton wheel is an example of an impulse turbine. It spins as one or more high-pressure water jets fire into the buckets around the edge. This one was originally used in a power plant. Photo courtesy of Wonderferret, published on Flickr under a Creative Commons licence. See more of Wonderferret's photos. Artwork by explainthatstuff.com published under a slightly different Creative Commons License.

Reaction turbines

In a reaction turbine, the blades sit in a much larger volume of fluid and turn around as the fluid flows past them. A reaction turbine doesn't change the direction of the fluid flow as drastically as an impulse turbine: it simply spins as the fluid pushes through and past its blades.

If an impulse turbine is a bit like kicking soccer balls, a reaction turbine is more like swimming. Think of how you do freestyle (front crawl) by hauling your arms through the water, starting with each hand as far in front as you can reach and ending with a "follow through" that throws your arm well behind you. What you're trying to achieve is to keep your hand and forearm pushing against the water for as long as possible, so you transfer as much energy as you can in each stroke. A reaction turbine is using the same idea in reverse: imagine fast-flowing water moving past you so it makes your arms and legs move and supplies energy to your body! With a reaction turbine, you want the water to touch the blades smoothly, for as long as it can, so it gives up as much energy as possible. The water isn't hitting the blades and bouncing off, as it does in an impulse turbine: instead, the blades are moving more smoothly, "going with the flow".

A reaction turbine Artwork showing how a reaction turbine works
Photo: A typical reaction turbine from a geothermal power plant. Water flows past the angled blades, pushing them around and turning the central shaft to which they're attached. The shaft spins a generator that makes electricity. Photo by Henry Price courtesy of US Department of Energy/National Renewable Energy Laborayory (DOE/NREL). Accompanying Artwork by explainthatstuff.com.

Thinking backwards

Airplane propeller in closeup

Metal turbine blade exhibited in a science museum.

You might have noticed that wind turbines look just like giant airplane propellers—and that's another way to think of turbines: as propellers working in reverse. In an airplane, the engine turns the propeller at high speed, the propeller creates a backward-moving draft of air, and that's what pushes the plane forward. With a propeller, the moving blades are driving the air; with a turbine, the air is driving the blades.

Photo: Turbines and propellers work in exactly opposite ways. Propellers use energy to make a fluid move (air, in the case of a plane, or water, in a ship or submarine); turbines harness energy when a moving fluid flows past them. Left: Propeller photo by Tech. Sgt. Justin D. Pyle courtesy of US Air Force. Right: Turbine blades are shaped in a similar way to propeller blades but are typically made from high-performance alloys because the fluid flowing past them can be very hot. Photo of a turbine blade exhibited at Think Tank, the science museum in Birmingham, England.

Turbines are also similar to pumps and compressors. In a pump, you have a spinning paddle wheel that sucks water in through one pipe and throws it out from another so you can move water (or another liquid) from one place to another. If you take a water pump apart, you can see the internal paddle wheel (which is called an impeller) is very similar to what you'd find inside a water turbine. The difference is that a pump uses energy to make a fluid move, while a turbine captures the energy from a moving fluid.

Turbines in action

Broadly speaking, we divide turbines into four kinds according to the type of fluid that drives them: water, wind, steam, and gas. Although all four types work in essentially the same way—spinning around as the fluid moves against them—they are subtly different and have to be engineered in very different ways. Steam turbines, for example, turn incredibly quickly because steam is produced under high-pressure. Wind turbines that make electricity turn relatively slowly (mainly for safety reasons), so they need to be huge to capture decent amounts of energy. Gas turbines need to be made from specially resilient alloys because they work at such high temperatures. Water turbines are often very big because they have to extract energy from an entire river, dammed and diverted to flow past them.

Water turbines

A Francis turbine from the Grand Coulee Dam

Photo: A giant Francis reaction turbine (the orange wheel at the top) being lowered into position at the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington State, USA. Water flows past the angled blades, pushing them around and turning the shaft to which they're attached. The shaft spins an electricity generator that makes power. Photo by courtesy of US Bureau of Reclamation.

Water wheels, which date back over 2000 years to the time of the ancient Greeks, were the original water turbines. Today, the same principle is used to make electricity in hydroelectric power plants. The basic idea of hydroelectric power is that you dam a river to harness its energy. Instead of the river flowing freely downhill from its hill or mountain source toward the sea, you make it fall through a height (called a head) so it picks up speed (in other words, so its potential energy is converted to kinetic energy), then channel it through a pipe called a penstock past a turbine and generator. Hydroelectricity is effectively a three-step energy conversion:

The river's original potential energy (which it has because it starts from high ground) is turned into kinetic energy when the water falls through a height.
The kinetic energy in the moving water is converted into mechanical energy by a water turbine.
The spinning water turbine drives a generator that turns the mechanical energy into electrical energy.

Different kinds of water turbine are used depending on the geography of the area, how much water is available (the flow), and the distance over which it can be made to fall (the head). Some hydroelectric plants use bucket-like impulse turbines (typically Pelton wheels); others use Francis, Kaplan, or Deriaz reaction turbines. The type of turbine is chosen carefully to extract the maximum amount of energy from the water.

Wind turbines

Vestas wind turbine seen from below

These are covered in much more detail in our separate article on wind turbines.

Photo: A typical wind turbine, in Wyoming, United States. The tower is 40m (131ft) off the ground because the wind moves faster when it's clear of ground-level obstructions. The rotor blades are 42m (138ft) in diameter and, with a huge sweep, capture up to 600 kW (kilowatts) of energy. Photo by Tom Hall courtesy of US Department of Energy/National Renewable Energy Laboratory (DOE/NREL).

Steam turbines

Steam turbines evolved from the steam engines that changed the world in the 18th and 19th centuries. A steam engine burns coal on an open fire to release the heat it contains. The heat is used to boil water and make steam, which pushes a piston in a cylinder to power a machine such as a railroad locomotive. This is quite inefficient (it wastes energy) for a whole variety of reasons. A much better design takes the steam and channels it past the blades of a turbine, which spins around like a propeller and drives the machine as it goes.

Steam turbines were pioneered by British engineer Charles Parsons (1854–1931), who used them to power a famously speedy motorboat called Turbinia in 1889. Since then, they've been used in many different ways. Virtually all power plants generate electricity using steam turbines. In a coal-fired plant, coal is burned in a furnace and used to heat water to make steam that spins high-speed turbines connected to electricity generators. In a nuclear power plant, the heat that makes the steam comes from atomic reactions.

Unlike water and wind turbines, which place a single rotating turbine in the flow of liquid or gas, steam turbines have a whole series of turbines (each of which is known as a stage) arranged in a sequence inside what is effectively a closed pipe. As the steam enters the pipe, it's channelled past each stage in turn so progressively more of its energy is extracted. If you've ever watched a kettle boiling, you'll know that steam expands and moves very quickly if it's directed through a nozzle. For that reason, steam turbines turn at very high speeds—many times faster than wind or water turbines.

Gas turbines

Airplane jet engines are a bit like steam turbines in that they have multiple stages. Instead of steam, they're driven by a mixture of the air sucked in at the front of the engine and the incredibly hot gases made by burning huge quantities of kerosene (petroleum-based fuel). Somewhat less powerful gas turbine engines are also used in modern railroad locomotives and industrial machines. See our article on jet engines for more details.

Turbines