Nowadays, windmills don’t just rely on the wind’s force to push the blades into motion in order to produce energy. Modern turbines use more complicated and refined aerodynamic principles to make use of the wind’s energy most efficiently.

The two basic aerodynamic forces that work together in wind-turbine rotors are lift, which acts perpendicular to the direction of wind flow; and drag, which acts parallel to the direction of wind flow.

The blades of a turbine are shaped just like airplane wings, using an airfoil design. One surface of the blade is a little rounded, whereas the other side is quite flat.

Actually what happens in lift is that when the wind travels over the rounded, downwind face of the blade, it is forced to move more rapidly in order to reach the end of the blade in time to meet the wind travelling over the flat, upwind face of the blade. As faster moving air has a greater atmosphere, the downwind, curved surface ends up with a low-pressure pocket just above it. The low-pressure area sucks the blade downwards, causing an effect known as “lift.”

On the upper side of the blade, the wind moves slower hence creating an area of higher pressure that pushes on the blade, trying to slow it down. Similar to what happens to an airplane wing, a high lift-to-drag ratio is created to turn the turbine blade effectively. Moreover, turbine blades are twisted so they can always present an angle that takes full advantage of the ideal lift-to-drag force ratio.

However, aerodynamics alone cannot be responsible for the effective working of the wind turbines. The construction and specially the size of the blades also matter as longer blades capture more energy from the wind and hence generate greater electricity.

The height of the tower also plays a vital role in the production capacity. The higher the turbine, the more energy it can capture as wind speeds increase with height . Wind closer to the ground is much slower due to ground friction and ground-level objects that hinder the flow of the wind.

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