full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Rebecca J. Barthelmie and Sara C. Pryor: How do wind turbines work?
Unscramble the Blue Letters
First up, blade orientation. Wind turbines can be designed with their rotor on a vertical axis or a horizontal axis. Vertical blades can pick up wind coming from any direction, but with much less efficiency than horizontal axis rotors. Horizontal designs allow blades to capture the wind’s full force by trciankg the wind’s direction and tnirnug to face it. This turning psercos is called ynwaig, and older windmills achieved it through manual monitoring. Today, wind sensors and computer systems automatically ajsdut the blades with epxret pisircoen to cutprae as much energy as possible.
Open Cloze
First up, blade orientation. Wind turbines can be designed with their rotor on a vertical axis or a horizontal axis. Vertical blades can pick up wind coming from any direction, but with much less efficiency than horizontal axis rotors. Horizontal designs allow blades to capture the wind’s full force by ________ the wind’s direction and _______ to face it. This turning _______ is called ______, and older windmills achieved it through manual monitoring. Today, wind sensors and computer systems automatically ______ the blades with ______ _________ to _______ as much energy as possible.
Solution
- tracking
- yawing
- process
- turning
- adjust
- expert
- capture
- precision
Original Text
First up, blade orientation. Wind turbines can be designed with their rotor on a vertical axis or a horizontal axis. Vertical blades can pick up wind coming from any direction, but with much less efficiency than horizontal axis rotors. Horizontal designs allow blades to capture the wind’s full force by tracking the wind’s direction and turning to face it. This turning process is called yawing, and older windmills achieved it through manual monitoring. Today, wind sensors and computer systems automatically adjust the blades with expert precision to capture as much energy as possible.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
collocation |
frequency |
wind turbines |
4 |
wind energy |
3 |
rotational energy |
3 |
wind turbine |
3 |
kinetic energy |
2 |
modern wind |
2 |
horizontal axis |
2 |
modern blades |
2 |
Important Words
- achieved
- adjust
- automatically
- axis
- blade
- blades
- called
- capture
- coming
- computer
- designed
- designs
- direction
- efficiency
- energy
- expert
- face
- force
- full
- horizontal
- manual
- monitoring
- older
- orientation
- pick
- precision
- process
- rotor
- rotors
- sensors
- systems
- today
- tracking
- turbines
- turning
- vertical
- wind
- windmills
- yawing