Design of a Wind Turbine
A wind turbine, whether a giant industrial scale model or a small residential unit, consists of the same basic parts. First of all, there are two main types of wind turbines: horizontal and vertical axis. You are likely most familiar with a horizontal axis machine, which is the common windmill style. A vertical axis turbine spins parallel to the ground, much like the air speed indictators you may have seen beside the runway at an airport.
The blades of the turbine are going to capture the wind. Most modern electrical wind turbines have blades that look very much like an airplane propeller. The principle is the same, though the use is opposite. Instead of an engine driving the propeller, in this case, the propeller is driving the engine. The blades usually consist of light metal like aluminum or a plastic composite. Historically, cloth has been used to create sails (including, of course, the actual sails on a ship), and in future we may see wind machines consisting of filaments or cloth-like strips which can capture energy without neccesarily spinning in a circle.
The blades are attached to an axis, and that axis is used to drive a generator. The generator is where the mechanical motion of the rotor will be translated into electrical energy. This is accomplished by the peculiar quality of magnetism and its interaction with metals, particularly copper.
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Once there is a sufficient charge, the electrical charge will travel down some kind of transmission line, usually copper wire, where it will then either be connected to a storage battery or straight into whatever load it is being used to run. If the wind turbine is being used to run a mechanical device, such as a water pump, then the spinning of the turbine will be mechanically translated into a pumping motion, and no electricity will be genereated at all.
Obviously there are a lot more possible components to any wind turbine. Modern large scale turbines use computers to adjust direction and rotor speed in order to achieve maximum efficiency. Battery banks are often wired in so that excess energy can be stored for times when the wind isn't blowing. Invertors are required to match line voltage with both the load and the storage cells. But despite these refinements, even in a small residential wind turbine, the basics are the same.