Rudimentary Treatise on the Power of Water; As Applied to Drive Flour Mills, and to Give Motion to Turbines and Other Hydrostatic Engines (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1853 edition. Excerpt: ...or wooden buckets of the wheels used for irrigation, the vessels so loaded would descend and the wheels revolve, so that rotary motion and mechanical power would be gained; the buckets emptying themselves at the lowest point, as they had before been emptied at the highest; the wheel turning in the opposite direction, because the weight, or gravity of the water was now the moving power of this Overshot Wheel. In the undershot wheel the impulse of the water striking the floats drives the wheel; in the overshot wheel the weight of the water flowing into the buckets turns the wheel, and all impulse must be avoided; the water must flow with the same velocity as the wheel, or just so much in excess as will prevent the buckets from striking the water as they present themselves to be filled. Experience soon showed that the earthen jar or the suspended bucket were cumbrous and inconvenient, and as larger and more powerful wheels were applied to more copious streams, a series of simple wooden troughs formed across the face of the wheel were found to answer the purpose better. When the supply of water was ample and the wheel large, it was found that to fill these troughs well and regularly the stream should be made nearly as broad as the wheel, and shallow in proportion to its width. The wheel was then formed by placing two sets of arms, at a sufficient distance apart, upon the axle, and fixing to their ends segments of wood to form the circle; upon these segments across the face of the wheel, and equal to, or somewhat exceeding in length the width of the stream or sheet of water, were nailed the sole-boards; on the end of these boards, and at right angles to them, so as to form a projecting rim or ledge on each side of the wheel's face, was fixed...