History of Water Wheel
The water wheel is an ancient device that uses flowing or falling water to create power by means of a set of paddles mounted around a central wheel or axle. The force of the water moves the paddles, blades or buckets, and the consequent rotation of the wheel is transmitted to machinery via the shaft of the wheel. The first reference to its use dates back to about 400 B.C. Where, in a poem by an early Greek writer, Antipater, it tells about the freedom from the toil of young women who operated small hand mills to grind corn. were used for crop irrigation, grinding grains, supply drinking experts water to villages and later to drive sawmills, pumps, forge bellows, tilt-hammers, trip hammers, and to power textile mills. The first description of a water wheel that can be identified as vertical is from Vitruvius, an engineer of the Augustan Age (31 BC - 14 AD), Which was created in Rome. Three horizontal water wheels, side-by-side, were set into the bridge abutments that were used for grains and flour. Also Waterpower was important source of energy in ancient China civilization. One of the most applications was for iron casting. Chinese waterwheels were typically horizontal. The vertical wheel, however, was known. It was used to operate trip hammers for hulling rice and crushing ore. In medieval Europe, social and economic conditions increased the need for replacing manual labor with powered machines. Several reasons have been suggested for the increased use of water power. From the 10th century on there was steady progress in land reclamation. Areas in northern and western Europe, once sparsely populated, came under cultivation. Grain was an important crop, and most of it was ground by water mills. In the 18th century in Spain, the Molinos Nuevos was constructed on a site with a long history of mills. The last incarnation had 21 horizontal wheels (later expanded to 24) located in a line parallel to the Segura River. Water was diverted from a weir pond into a channel; the differential head between the channel and the river was used to turn the wheels. Today Molinos Nuevos is a museum. In the 19th and 20th century Water wheel were commonly used for creating electricity!
How the Water Wheel works?
The Water Wheel is not a complicated set up, the water flows down or falls on the paddles of the water wheel and spins the water wheel around which spins the shaft its on and the gear on the same shaft, is connected to a generator with a belt, so when the water wheel spins so does the belt and the generator shaft spins which creates electricity! As you can see in the diagram below, the arrow indicating the turning of the wheel and the belt connecting the water wheel to the generator will spin.