How does wind spin those giant turbines? It seems like even high-speed winds wouldn’t move it very quickly with how heavy the turbine blades must be.
In: Planetary Science
Everybody is talking about surface area. This isn’t entirely the correct why to look at it.
The blades are highly cambered (high lift producing) aerofoils. They are not “catching” the wind using surface area, they are producing lift in the direction of rotation.
It can be thought of as the inverse of a helicopter which uses rotational power to create lift tangential to the blade.
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