Turbine
rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow
A turbine ( or ) (from the Greek τύρβη, tyrbē, or Latin turbo, meaning vortex) is a rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work. The work produced can be used for generating electrical power when combined with a generator. A turbine is a turbomachine with at least one moving part called a rotor assembly, which is a shaft or drum with blades attached. Moving fluid acts on the blades so that they move and impart rotational energy to the rotor.
Gas, steam, and water turbines have a casing around the blades that contains and controls the working fluid. Modern steam turbines frequently employ both reaction and impulse in the same unit, typically varying the degree of reaction and impulse from the blade root to its periphery.
History
Hero of Alexandria demonstrated the turbine principle in an aeolipile in the first century AD and Vitruvius mentioned them around 70 BC.
Early turbine examples are windmills and waterwheels.
The word "turbine" was first applied to this kind of device in 1822 by the French mining engineer Claude Burdin in a memo, "Des turbines hydrauliques ou machines rotatoires à grande vitesse", which he submitted to the Académie royale des sciences in Paris. The word derives from the Latin turbo, meaning "vortex" or "top", and was in use in French to describe certain seashells. However, it was not until 1824 that a committee of the Académie (composed of Prony, Dupin, and Girard) reported favorably on Burdin's memo.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Turbine” is rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Turbine, rotary and mechanical, not as a finished interpretation.
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This entry incorporates text from “Turbine” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.