Water wheel

“ By the side of the {19} works is a water-wheel, the earliest and the latest harnessing of water-power, a striking illustration of the return of industry to its oldest helpmate. It will be a curious instance of history repeating itself if manufactures again plant themselves by streams as in the days before water-wheels were superseded by steam. ”

“ If the water is now allowed to run slowly from the faucet and fall upon the inside paddles it will set the wheel in motion, and this motion can be transmitted to any small and simple piece of machinery by means of a belt running from the spool which is attached to the wheel to a similar spool, attached to the machine.
The Circus Performers.
If you Make a Frame,
similar to that which holds the water-wheel, (Fig. 144) and make it with much shorter hanging-bars, it will not be necessary to support them with the diagonal pieces. ”

“ A reciprocating steam engine "kicks" a wheel round in a circle by means of steam expanding first in one direction, then in another. A water wheel, on the other hand, is made to revolve by means of the pressure of water—by the constant force of gravity, itself—weight. Weight is something that does not vary from minute to minute, or from one fraction of a second to another. It is always the same. A square inch of water pressing on the blades of a water wheel weights ten, twenty, a hundred pounds, according to the height of the pipe conveying that water from the source of supply, to the wheel. ”

“ To impel a vessel by this means, two paddle wheels, like those used in an under-shot water-wheel, are connected by means of a long axis and crank, with the working beam of the steam-engine; and if this motion is not found sufficiently rapid, a wheel and pinion are added, which, although it decreases the effective power of the engine, yet increases the velocity of the paddle wheels. ”

“ When we continued our journey we saw two portable water wheels by means of which water was being lifted into a paddy. Each wheel was worked by a man who continually ascended the floats. The two men were able to leave their wheels in turn for a rest, for a third man was stretched on the ground in readiness for his spell. It seems that a man can keep on the water tread-mill for an hour. ”

“ Ten water-wheels, located in an immense wheel-pit about two hundred feet deep, each wheel of a capacity of five thousand horse-power, drive large vertical shafts, at the upper end of which are located the large two-phase dynamos, each of five thousand horse-power. ”

“ The pumping in most cases is done by men or buffaloes, and the clumsy-looking but effective Egyptian water-wheel, a rough wooden contrivance that as it revolves, raises the water from below and pours it from holes in the side into a wooden trough, from whence it flows over the field. ”

“ A.--In all paddle vessels, whatever be their subordinate characteristics, a great shaft of wrought iron, s, turned round by the engine, has to be carried from side to side of the vessel, on which shaft are fixed the paddle wheels. The paddle wheels may either be formed with fixed float boards for engaging the water, like the boards of a common undershot water wheel, or they may be formed with feathering float boards as they are termed, which is float boards movable on a centre, and so governed by appropriate mechanism that they enter and leave the water in a nearly vertical position. ”

“ Round their faces floatboards are fixed, which, on being struck by the current of the river, make the wheel turn as they move, and thus, by raising the water in the boxes and bringing it to the top, they accomplish the necessary work through being turned by the mere impulse of the river, without any treading on the part of workmen. ”

“ What is the best turbine water wheel now in use? A. There are several wheels in market that seem equally good. You should examine all of them and decide from your own observation which is best. 2. What is the rule for finding the horse power of water acting through a turbine wheel which utilizes 80 per cent of the water? A. Finding the weight of water falling over the dam and its velocity in feet per minute, multiply the weight in pounds by the velocity, and the result is foot pounds, divided by 33,000, the quotient is theoretical horse power; if your wheel gives out 80 per cent. ”

“ The arms of the water wheels I would make of wood, to which I attach floats or paddles of cast iron or thick boiler plate sheet iron, though they may be made of wood. These floats I make move up and down on the arms by means of screws and holes, so as to make them deeper or shallower in the water, in taking a hold on the water, agreeably to the depth of the water the boat may draw, or the lading there may be on board, or agreeably to other circumstances. The supporters of the outer 6 ends of the water wheel shaft to be made of iron with braces, though they may be made of wood, if required. ”

“ He entered the automobile, touched some buttons, and with a whirring sound a dozen little scoop-shaped flanges sprang from the rim of each wheel. There was no need for farther explanation. We could see at once that in water the four wheels now became paddle-wheels, and their rapid revolution would no doubt drive the machine at a swift pace.
The paddles were cleverly shaped, being made of the same metal employed everywhere in the construction of this astonishing invention, and they stood at just the right angle to obtain the utmost power of propulsion. ”

“ In the breast wheel, the water strikes the paddles half way up the wheel on the rear side and drives the wheel in the same direction as that of the undershot wheel.
When we speak of water power we are apt to think of the water as actually furnishing the energy. As a matter of fact, it is not water but gravity that drives the wheel, the water being merely the medium [77] that gravity acts upon. By having the water drop from a great height, its velocity is greatly increased and the power it imparts to the wheel is much higher. ”

“ In an undershot wheel the water acts only by its momentum, or moving power. The circumference of the wheel, instead of being supplied with buckets, as in the overshot, and breast or balance wheels, is furnished with floats, or float boards, as they are called, and, being exposed to the action of a running stream, generally, if not always, increased in rapidity by making an artificial fall, is thus driven round, and in flour-mills its force is communicated by cog-wheels to the stones employed in reducing corn to meal. ”

“ By this arrangement I could have the paddles, which were more like a set of large-teethed combs than paddles, dip just such distance into the water as I desired. This wheel was connected by series of light wheels to the drum of the treadmill, so that I could obtain many revolutions of the water-wheel to one of the latter. ”

“ A wheel was so fixed in a small trough that when it was turned the water was raised from a little pool, and flowed over the land it was desirable to irrigate. The turning process was performed by a man who stood above the wheel, and stepped from one float to another. ”

“ As the wheel rotates, its motion is communicated to a mechanical device which makes use of it to raise and lower a plunger, and hence as long as the wind turns the windmill, water is raised. The water thus raised empties into a large tank, built either in the windmill tower or in the garret of the house, and from [182] the tank the water flows through pipes to the different parts of the house. On very windy days the wheel rotates rapidly, and the tank fills quickly ”

“ Mate," the manufacturer's representative had replied to his query, "that's what we call a weedless wheel. That is, it is specially designed for service in South American rivers of shallow draught where an ordinary propeller would soon get entangled in the weeds and water plants and stop. We guarantee this wheel to go through any tangle, just as an eel would." ”

“ They say that in rough weather the screw has the advantage, because it is alway in the water, etc. Experience shows just the reverse; and theory will bear the practice out. If, in the side-wheel one wheel is part of the time out, the other has, at any rate, the whole force of the engines, and the floats sink to and take hold on a denser, heavier, and less easily yielding stratum of water ”

“ In mountainous regions it is easy to obtain a high head of water and thus generate a great deal of power from a relatively small stream. However, the ancient type of wheel with its paddles or buckets has now practically passed out of existence, being superseded by the Pelton wheel for high heads and the turbine for low heads of water. ”

“ These are used where the height from which the water comes is not great enough to flow on the upper part of the wheel. The lower part of undershot wheels dips in the flowing water which strikes against their float-boards and carries them along. Such wheels are used in swift-flowing streams which have a scarcely perceptible fall, as, for instance, on the Rhine. In the immediate neighborhood of such a wheel, the water need not necessarily have a great fall if it only strikes with considerable velocity. ”

“ We shall, therefore, only remark, that such wheel, if intended for mills, is by the inventor stated to be preferable to all others turned by the tide; for its velocity is not only greater and more uniform, but a similar quantity of water also constantly acts on the wheel, which is so constructed, as to turn the same way, both with the ebb and flow, and in a more simple manner than any hitherto contrived. Thus, it moves horizontally, while the generality of tide-wheels revolve vertically ”

“ The wheel is provided with curved internal buckets against which the water is led by outer curved passages, the guides and the buckets both curved in such manner that the water shall enter the wheel as nearly as possible without shock, and leave it with the least possible velocity, thereby utilising the greatest possible amount of energy. ”

“ The plan, however, where economy of water is of any importance, is very objectionable; because the wheel must move at by far too great a velocity to act to advantage as a water-wheel.
The wash or dash-wheel, now driven by power in all good bleach and print-works, is represented in fig. 129., upon the left side in a back view, and upon the right side in a front view (the sketch being halved) . Fig. 130. is a ground plan.
a a is the washing-wheel; b b its shaft-ends; c c their brass bearings or plummer-blocks, supported upon the iron pillars d d. ”

“ The wheel is inclosed in an iron casing in which it revolves freely, the only points at which there is any friction being the bearings of the shaft. The manner of using the water constitutes the special feature of the motor, and is one that peculiarly adapts it to use on service-pipes, as it reduces the consumption to a minimum. In the wheels used in manufacturing, whether of the turbine or other pattern, motion is imparted by the continuous pressure of a considerable body of water. ”

“ A horizontal wheel is geared loosely into a vertical one by big, clumsy wooden teeth. Over it projects an arm to which some patient draft animal is hitched. A long grass rope carrying an endless series of pottery jars or buckets completes the outfit by running over the vertical wheel, and all the water that does not splash back into the well flows into an irrigating pool and the ditches. The mule who worked this particular wheel acted as if he too were a Moorish survival, unaccustomed to modern inventions. Anyway, he tried to bolt when the engine shrieked. ”

“ Further, a b, in both figures, is a circular slit of the whole diameter, through which the water rushes at once on all the floats of the wheel; whose axis goes up into the building through a kind of barrel, that prevents the water from escaping in any other part than the aforesaid circular aperture. The wheel itself is represented at e f, fig. 2; and fig. 4 is an elevation of it, with it’s shaft, and a few of the floats, to shew the manner of their receiving the stroke of the water. ”

“ The propelling power is a large diameter wheel at the stern of the boat, the full width of the vessel, resembling the undershot wheel of a mill, and driven by two cylinders, one on either side. The floats of this wheel are but 8 to 10 inches in the water when light, and 30 inches when loaded, and do not therefore produce those destructive currents which come from the screw or paddle steamer. ”

“ The paddle-wheel really acts as a continuous oar. Such a wheel is shown in Fig. 33 . As the wheel goes around the paddle dips into the water and pushes the boat forward. If the direction of the boat is to be reversed, the rotation of the paddle-wheels is reversed.
Before passing onto the screw, it may be well to explain just how a paddle-wheel causes a boat to move. When a man gets into a rowboat, he generally pushes himself off by placing his oar against the dock or shore and pushing on it. That is just what the paddle does in the water. ”

“ Use brads for fastening the side pieces to the paddle ends. Those removed from the cigar boxes will do.
The Wheel Shaft should be a trifle shorter than the inside width of the can, and enough smaller than the 1⁄4-inch hole in the wheel side pieces so the wheel will turn freely. Locate the centers for the axle upon the two sides of the can, in the proper position so there will be the same margin above and at the ends of the wheel. Drive a nail through each side of the can into the axle end.
Fig. 65.—The Completed Water-motor Wheel. ”