Experimental and dimensional analysis of a breastshot water wheel

Vidali, Cristina; Fontan, Stefano; Quaranta, Emanuele; Cavagnero, Paolo; Revelli, Roberto

doi:10.1080/00221686.2016.1147499

Cited by 15 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…A complete analysis of the efficiency, output power and power losses of the Riviera mill and Forno mill WWs has been performed through theoretical analyses, experimental measurements in a laboratory device and with the help of CFD numerical simulations [20][21][22][23][24][25]. The results have been also used for the check of ancient and popular past formulation [8,26].…”

Section: Type Head Mmentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional Analysis of Piedmont (Italy) Ancient Water Mills Aimed at Their Recovery or Reconversion

2019

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Since ancient times and for hundreds of years, grain mills, hammers, sawmills, spinning mills, and hemp rollers have been powered by water wheels. In the nineteenth century there were hundreds of thousands of mills in all of Europe. It is an enormous historical and cultural heritage of inestimable value, which is for the most part, abandoned today. Recently, there is a renewed interest in their reuse, both for their widespread diffusion in the territory and for the excellent environmental integration and intrinsic sustainability. Even when, for economic reasons, their recovery for the original tasks is not suitable, the conversion into mini plants for the production of electricity can be advantageous. In the paper, analyzing some typical examples of the old water mill of the Piemonte region, in North-West of Italy, the mechanical architecture of old water mill, from water wheels to millstones, is described and the functional details of various mechanisms are provided. In fact, by knowing only the specifics of the ancient mills, it is possible to enhance their potential and restore them from the perspective of a renewed high quality production, or reconvert them in mini-plants for the production of electricity.

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Section: Type Head Mmentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional Analysis of Piedmont (Italy) Ancient Water Mills Aimed at Their Recovery or Reconversion

2019

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“…To better characterize the stability and flow characteristics for water wheels with different numbers of blades, Nguyen Manh Hung et al [21] discussed fluctuation of water-level differences between upstream and downstream areas and the output for different numbers of wheels; it was found that the six-blade wheels generated a greater torque and the water-level difference would be elevated remarkably as the number of blades increased. Many other studies had also been researched for breast and undershot water wheels through experiments and simulations [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]. However, those researches cannot have a generalized conclusion; water wheels still need to be developed for improving their performances.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance Investigation of the Immersed Depth Effects on a Water Wheel Using Experimental and Numerical Analyses

Zhao

Zheng

Yang

et al. 2020

Water

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The purpose of this research is to study the effect of different immersed depths on water wheel performance and flow characteristics using numerical simulations. The results indicate that the simulation methods are consistent with experiments with a maximum error less than 5%. Under the same rotational speeds, the efficiency is much higher and the fluctuation amplitude of the torque is much smaller as the immersed radius ratio increases, and until an immersed radius ratio of 82.76%, the wheel shows the best performance, achieving a maximum efficiency of 18.05% at a tip-speed ratio (TSR) of 0.1984. The average difference in water level increases as the immersed radius ratio increases until 82.76%. The water area is much wider and the water volume fraction shows more intense change at the inlet stage at a deep immersed depth. At an immersed radius ratio of 82.76%, some air intrudes into the water at the inlet stage, coupled with a dramatic change in the water volume fraction that would make the flow more complex. Furthermore, eddies are found to gradually generate in a single flow channel nearly at the same time, except for an immersed depth of 1.2 m. However, eddies generate in two flow channels and can develop initial vortexes earlier than other cases because of the elevation of the upstream water level at an immersed radius ratio of 82.76%.

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“…The 1 : 2 physical scale model of this wheel with the original blade profile has also been installed in the hydraulics laboratory at the Politecnico di Torino, both to study the performance of breastshot wheels in detail (Quaranta and Revelli, 2015a) and to validate the numerical model. The detailed experimental results are reported in Quaranta and Revelli (2016). CFD simulations for gravity water wheels have already been successfully conducted in Quaranta and Revelli (2016b); the performance of the present breastshot water wheel has been investigated through CFD simulations for different blade numbers.…”

Section: The Relative Entry Stream Velocity In the Impact Pointmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Vidali et al (2016), a dimensional approach was performed. In another study by Quaranta and Revelli (2016b), the number of blades has been investigated for breastshot water wheels.…”

Section: Scope Of the Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The maximum efficiency can be higher than 80 % for overshot water wheels (Quaranta and Revelli, 2015b), 75 % for breastshot water wheels (Quaranta and Revelli, 2015a;Quaranta and Revelli, 2016a;Vidali et al, 2016), higher than 80 % for undershot Zuppinger and Sagebien water wheels (Quaranta and Müller, 2017) and approximately 55 % for Poncelet wheels. Although water wheels are environmentally friendly (because of the large cells and low rotational speed; Müller and Kauppert, 2004;Quaranta and Müller, 2017) and efficient hydropower converters, only a small amount of research has been done on their performance characteristics in the last century.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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CFD simulations to optimize the blade design of water wheels

Quaranta

Revelli

2017

Drink. Water Eng. Sci.

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Abstract. At low head sites and at low discharges, water wheels can be considered among the most convenient hydropower converters to install. The aim of this work is to improve the performance of an existing breastshot water wheel by changing the blade shape using computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations. Three optimal profiles are investigated: the profile of the existing blades, a circular profile and an elliptical profile. The results are validated by performing experimental tests on the wheel with the existing profile. The numerical results show that the efficiency of breastshot wheels is affected by the blade profile. The average increase in efficiency using the new circular profile is about 4 % with respect to the profile of the existing blades.

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Experimental and dimensional analysis of a breastshot water wheel

Cited by 15 publications

References 6 publications

Functional Analysis of Piedmont (Italy) Ancient Water Mills Aimed at Their Recovery or Reconversion

Functional Analysis of Piedmont (Italy) Ancient Water Mills Aimed at Their Recovery or Reconversion

Performance Investigation of the Immersed Depth Effects on a Water Wheel Using Experimental and Numerical Analyses

CFD simulations to optimize the blade design of water wheels

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