- Practice · 5 marks
History of water wheels and turbines
Short answer
Water wheels evolved from horizontal Norse wheels (low efficiency) to vertical undershot, breast, and overshot wheels. Smeaton's tests led to scientific design. Turbines began with Segner's reaction wheel, Euler's theory, Fourneyron's outward-flow turbine, Francis's inward-flow reaction turbine, Pelton's impulse wheel, and Kaplan's axial-flow turbine, achieving over 90% efficiency.
Write short notes on the historical development of water wheels and water turbines.
Water power is one of the oldest sources of mechanical energy. The development went from simple wheels to the high-efficiency turbines used today.
Water wheels
- Horizontal (Norse or Greek) wheel: earliest form, with a vertical shaft; the stream strikes paddles directly. Low efficiency (below 15%), but no gearing needed to drive millstones.
- Vertical wheels (Roman, about 1st century BC): a horizontal shaft driven through gears.
- Undershot wheel: water flows under the wheel, striking the lower blades. Used on low heads; efficiency about 20 to 30%.
- Breast wheel: water enters at about the shaft level. Efficiency about 40 to 60%.
- Overshot wheel: water falls into buckets at the top; works by weight of water. Efficiency up to 60 to 70%.
- Smeaton (1750s) tested wheels with models and showed that overshot wheels were better than undershot, starting scientific design.
Water turbines
| Year (approx.) | Contributor | Development |
|---|---|---|
| 1750 | Segner | Reaction wheel (Segner wheel) |
| 1754 | Euler | Theory of turbomachines, the Euler equation |
| 1827 | Fourneyron | First practical outward-flow reaction turbine |
| 1849 | James B. Francis | Inward-flow reaction turbine (Francis turbine) |
| 1880 | Lester A. Pelton | Pelton wheel with double-hemispherical buckets, for high heads |
| 1913 | Viktor Kaplan | Axial-flow turbine with adjustable runner blades, for low heads and large flows |
Later improvements include the Banki (cross-flow) turbine for small plants, draft tubes, automatic governors and better materials. Modern turbines reach efficiencies of 90 to 95%, much higher than the early wheels.
✓ Answer checked by Claude Sonnet 5.5
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