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 rotros. Horizontal designs allow badles to capture the wind’s full force by tracking the wind’s direction and turning to face it. This tnunirg process is called yawing, and older wlindmils achieved it through manual monitoring. Today, wind sensors and cetmpuor stsmeys automatically adjust the blades with expert precision to capture as much egenry 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 ______. Horizontal designs allow ______ to capture the wind’s full force by tracking the wind’s direction and turning to face it. This _______ process is called yawing, and older _________ achieved it through manual monitoring. Today, wind sensors and ________ _______ automatically adjust the blades with expert precision to capture as much ______ as possible.
Solution
- blades
- windmills
- turning
- energy
- rotors
- systems
- computer
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