Eli5: Why are wind turbine blades not wider? Wouldn’t they catch more wind if they were?

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In my mind I have images of sail like blades. Would they not catch more wind if they were wider?

In: Engineering

5 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

The intention is not to catch wind, but to use the wind to rotate the blades. If they were bigger like a sail, the blades wouldn’t rotate. Hence they are designed aerodynamically so that they rotate with lesses wind speeds.

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