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A water wheel is a machine for converting the kinetic energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a large wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with numerous blades or buckets attached to the outer rim forming the drive mechanism.
It is noted that the water can carry immense power and pressure therefore can be used in several ways that benefit us and in this case we can use it to generate electricity. Resembling a lawn mower better known as a under sea windmill the turbines rotate when tides rush in and out which generates power and can give power up to 30 homes.
The main difference between early water turbines and water wheels is a swirl component of the water which passes energy to a spinning rotor. This additional component of motion allowed the turbine to be smaller than a water wheel of the same power. They could process more water by spinning faster and could harness much greater heads.
Some hydropower systems such as water wheels can draw power from the flow of a body of water without necessarily changing its height. In this case, the available power is the kinetic energy of the flowing water. Over-shot water wheels can efficiently capture both types of energy. [7] The flow in a stream can vary widely from season to season.
Water wheel: Water wheels can be used at low heads (1–5 metres) and medium flows (0.3–1.5 m 3 /s) and are considered safe for aquatic life. Gravitation water vortex power plant : This type of hydro power plant use the power of a gravitation water vortex, which only exists at low head.
Water wheels of different types have been used for more than 1,000 years to power mills of all types, but they were relatively inefficient. Nineteenth-century efficiency improvements of water turbines allowed them to replace nearly all water wheel applications and compete with steam engines wherever water power was available.
Overshot water wheel maximum efficiency (hydraulic efficiency) is 85%. [12] [13] Undershot water wheels can operate with very low head, but also have efficiencies below 30%. [14] Gravitation water vortex power plant : part of the river flow at a weir or natural water fall is diverted into a round basin with a central bottom exit that creates a ...
Both potential and kinetic energy are harvested, providing higher energy extraction efficiency than a kinetic energy only approach. This is the principal difference between traditional water wheels and the water wall turbine design. It is this difference that allows a water wall turbine to operate effectively in low head environments.