turbine

turbine

any of various types of machine in which the kinetic energy of a moving fluid is converted into mechanical energy by causing a bladed rotor to rotate. The moving fluid may be water, steam, air, or combustion products of a fuel

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

turbine

[′tər·bən]

(mechanical engineering)

A fluid acceleration machine for generating rotary mechanical power from the energy in a stream of fluid.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

turbine

A rotary wheel fitted with vanes, or buckets, radiating out form its circumference. The rotary wheel is activated by impulse or the reaction of fluid through the vanes, or blades, as the kinetic energy of fluids is converted into mechanical power.

An Illustrated Dictionary of Aviation Copyright © 2005 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Turbine

 

a prime mover characterized by purely rotational motion of the operating element—rotor—and a continuous process that changes the kinetic energy of a supplied working fluid—for example, steam, gas, or water—into mechanical energy.

Industrial steam and gas turbines are used to drive electric power generators (turbine generators), centrifugal compressors and blast blowers (turbocompressors and turboblowers), and feed, fuel, and oil pumps (turbine pumps). Steam and gas turbine engines are used as the main engines on ships. Gas turbines are also used as aircraft engines (turboprop and turbojet engines) and, in certain cases, in locomotives (gas-turbine locomotives) and special automobiles that require especially powerful engines. Hydroturbines are built only as industrial turbines for driving low-speed electric power generators (hydroelectric generators) in hydroelectric power plants.

As of 1976, the maximum power of turbines was 1,300 megawatts (MW) for steam turbines, 100 MW for gas turbines, and over 600 MW for hydroturbine units. Because of their economy, compactness, reliability, and possibility of achieving high unit power, turbines have practically replaced piston steam engines in present-day power engineering throughout the world. (See alsoGAS TURBINE, HYDROTURBINE, and STEAM TURBINE.)

S. M. LOSEV

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.