Quantum Reverie

fyeahuniverse:

I sure can help you with that!

Lenz’s Law

First off, Lenz’s law states that, “there is an induced current in a closed loop if and only if the magnetic flux through the loop is changing. The direction of the induced current is such that the induced magnetic field always opposes the change in flux.”

What does this mean?
This means that if you take a wire in a formation such as in the following image and pass a magnet through it. By doing this you are changing the magnetic flux through the loop. This would evidently not work if the material is non-magnetic. So, thus far we know that passing a magnet through a closed loop of wire will change the magnetic flux acting upon the electrons in the wire. A flux can simply be defined as a change in the magnetic field acting upon an area, in this case, the wire.

How does this magnetic flux induce a current?
Magnetic fields are created by electric currents, or more generally, moving electric charges. From this we can can understand that if one creates the other, then it can work in reverse and a magnetic field can create a current. This is caused by the magnetic field acting upon the negatively charged electrons in the wire. The electrons are pushed in one direction or another depending on what is called ‘the right hand rule,’ but that isn’t something we need to know.

How does this relate to win turbines?
This is far more simple than you would expect. I am going to keep this reasonably simple for the sake of not writing a whole essay on wind turbines. Essentially as the wind pushes the large blades around in a circle, a gearbox then turns this slow rotational motion into quick rotational motion which is better suited for electricity generation.

Designs may vary, but I will describe one of them for you now. At its simplest the generator will consist of a large coil of wire which is called the conductor. Surrounding that will be a set of very strong magnets. One of the two of these parts needs to rotate in order to generate a current, and the choice of which one rotates will depend on the design. The rotation will be very quick in comparison to the turbine blades due to the gearbox system mentioned earlier, thus greatly increasing the current generated. The current can then be sent out down the wires to be distributed around the country.

Image via chrono13.blogspot

(Source: throughascientificlens)