Turbine waterwheels. Gas, steam, and water turbines have a casing around the blades that contains and controls the working fluid. Credit for invention of the steam turbine is given both to Anglo-Irish engineer Sir Charles Parsons (1854–1931) for invention of the reaction turbine, and to Swedish engineer Gustaf de Laval (1845–1913) for invention of the impulse turbine. Modern steam turbines frequently employ both reaction and impulse in the same unit, typically varying the degree of reaction and impulse from the blade root to its periphery. The word "turbine" was coined in 1822 by the French mining engineer Claude Burdin from the
Smith-Putnam wind turbine Smith-Putnam wind turbine The Smith-Putnam wind turbine was the world's first megawatt-size wind turbine. In 1941 it was connected to the local electrical distribution system on Grandpa's Knob in Castleton, Vermont, US. It was designed by Palmer Cosslett Putnam and manufactured by the S. Morgan Smith Company. The 1.25 MW turbine operated for 1100 hours before a blade failed at a known weak point, which had not been reinforced due to wartime material shortages. It would be the largest wind turbine ever built until 1979. The turbine had two blades, 175 feet (53 m) in diameter, on the down-wind side