The 4 types of turbines are-

Water turbines
Steam turbines
Gas turbines &
Wind turbines

Turbines used in ​hydro powerplants​ :-

The turbines used in hydroelectric powerplants are water turbines which have water as their
working fluid.
First of all, millions of litres of water is collected in the dam. More the height of dam, more the
pressure. The highly pressurized water is then made to flow via large pipe called as penstock.
The turbine is located at the end of penstock from where the pressurized water strike the blades
of turbine at high velocity making it to rotate. This turbine is connected to a generator which
generates electricity.
The shape of turbine blades depend upon the pressure & velocity of water. Water turbines are
classified into 2 types-

Impulse type
Reaction type
Types of turbines used in hydroelectric powerplants !
Types of water turbines with Francis being most widely used.
Impulse type turbines-
Impulse turbines basically work on Newton’s 2nd law.
In impulse turbines, number of elliptical half sized buckets are fitted instead of blades on the
rotor hub. When water strike the buckets at high speed, the rotor starts rotating. In short, the
kinetic energy of water gets converted into rotational mechanical energy !
Thus electricity is generated when one end of turbine shaft is connected to generator !
Example – Pelton turbine

Reaction turbines-
The turbine blades or the impeller blades are designed in such a way that a force is generated
on one side when water flows through it just like an airfoil. The force produced by airfoil is
responsible for lift of aeroplane. Similarly here, that force makes the blades rotate.
Example – Kaplan turbine

Different types of turbines have their own ideal operating conditions. For eg.

→ Pelton turbines are preferred where low discharge rate can be obtained & high
head(80-1600m) is available.
→ Kaplan turbines require high discharge rate along with low or medium head(2-70m).
→ Francis turbine work on medium flow rate & medium head. Francis turbine is a combination
of impulse & reaction turbine. Francis turbines are most widely used turbines because they offer
the highest efficiency & could also work in wide range of operating conditions.

1m head of water = 9810 Pa (100m of head is almost 7 times of atmospheric pressure)

Turbines used in ​thermal powerplants​ :-

Also called as steam turbines, they are used in nuclear & thermal powerplants where water is
heated to form steam & then flowed through turbines to produce electricity. Alike water turbines,
steam turbines are also classified into impulse & reaction types but the arrangement & design is
different. All the modern steam turbines are a combination of impulse & reaction type.

types of steam turbines - Impulse & Reaction

Blades of Impulse & Reaction turbines
Steam turbines consist not only rotating blades called as rotor but also static blades called as
stator. Rotors & stators are placed alternately in order to extract most energy out of it. This
method is called as compounding.

Also, if you observe, the moving buckets in impulse turbine are designed to get pushed by the
steam. While the rotor blades in reaction turbine are aerofoiled shape, which lets itself generate
reaction & also let steam maintain its velocity !

Section view of a steam turbine

In the image: The steam first flows through high pressure(H.P) turbine followed by intermediate
pressure(I.P) turbine. Then again after reheating the steam, it is made to flow through low
pressure(L.P) turbines(huge set of blades).
The reason behind increase in blade sizes from inner side to outer side is because steam
expands while losing its pressure & kinetic energy & giving it to turbines.

Gas turbines​ :-
Parts of a jet engine
Parts of a gas turbine, popularly called as jet engine.
Gas turbines in other words are internal combustion engines, which are not only used in
powerplants for generating electricity but also for propelling airplanes & helicopters. Gas
turbines as a whole system has a axial compressor at the inlet. These are sets of rotating
blades which suck huge amount of air & compress it which also increases the temperature. This
air is then supplied to the combustion chamber. Fuel is added into the combustion chamber &
ignitor ignites the fuel. Thus large amount of exhaust gases are produced which are made to
flow through turbines.
The different types of gas turbines/jet engines are –

Turbojet
Turbofan
Turbojet
Turboshaft
Ramjet
The above mentioned are open cycle gas turbines where the exhaust gases are let directly into
atmosphere. The other type i.e closed cycle gas turbines where the exhaused are reused again
for reheating are used in powerplants.
Here is more detailed working of gas turbines & different types of gas turbines in detail.

Wind turbines​ :-

Parts in wind turbine

Wind turbines are a boon to mankind- affordable, clean & sustainable ! Some windfarms are so
big that they could produce 50MW of power.
Well, coming to working of wind turbines, the story remains same as other turbines. The rotor
has 3 blades & are designed in such a way that when wind flows straight through them, they
start rotating. The only problem here is wind turbines rotate at a very low of RPM. The low RPM
doesn’t produce electricity of required frequency & that is why we require a gearbox which
increases the speed of shaft. The output shaft is then connected to the generator.
The 3 primary types of wind turbines are –

Horizontal-axis wind turbines (HAWT)

Savonius vertical-axis wind turbine (Savonius VAWT)
Darrieus vertical-axis wind turbine (Darrieus VAWT)
Types of turbines used in wind energy
3 main types of wind turbines
HAWTs are much older & common while VAWTs produce less power, are less efficient & hence
are not used commonly.

Well, what’s interesting is why do wind turbines have 3 blades ?

Adding more number of blades increases torque which is not the need here. Increase in torque
decreases the RPM which is undesirable. Also cost increases significantly.
Also lowering the number of blades to 2 leads to gyroscopic instability & periodic stresses which
makes it unsafe.
Hence, 3 blades makes wind turbines the most efficient in all terms