US12949A - Water-wheel - Google Patents

Description

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

DEAN S. HOYVARD, OF LYONSDALE, NEV YORK.

WATER-WH EEL.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 12,949, dated May 29, 1855.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, DEAN S. HOWARD, of Lyonsdale, in Lewis county and State of New York, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Water-Wheels; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description thereof, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, forming part of this specification, and in which- Figure l is a side elevation of the wheel, scroll, and flume, the shaft only being in section. Fig. 2 is a central horizontal section through the wheel and scroll.

My invention has reference to that class of wheels commonly called central-discharge wheels, and it consists in an arrangement of lthe buckets and plates between which they are secured in such form as to receive the direct action of thewater' at the periphery of the wheel, whence they verge from a vertical toward a horizontal course along the shaft, forming a double conical screw which isaffected by the reaction equal to the excess of motion of the water over that of the wheel.

In the accompanying drawings, A represents the flume for conducting the water to the wheel. It is so arranged that about onethird (more or less, according to circumstances unnecessary to detail here) of the area of its cross-section overlaps the periphery of the wheel, so that that portion (one-third) of the water strikes on the rst bucket, the balance being conducted onward in the graduallytapering scroll B. Each bucket around the wheel will be acted on by the direct force of a portion of the water in its passage through the scroll until the whole of it enters the Wheel. The buckets c are set in between two annular plates around the shaft. These plates d d are curved from the periphery to the axis, as shown in Fig. 2, the one d being secured to the shaft, while the other d is attached to it by bolts passing through both near their peripheries and clamping the buckets edgewise between them. The buckets are cut straight. Their edges are parallel, and i'n conforming to the curved plates they are twisted about one-fourth round, so that the end near the axis of the wheel is nearly at right angles to that at the periphery, (and may be continued with the same varying curve and twist as represented in red lines,) forming a spiral or screw partially around the shaft, which, gradually straightening, terminates parallel with the shaft, the end being radial and its edge at right angles tothe longitudinal center line of theshal't. This form of wheel on a horizontal shaft should be constructed double, so as to discharge the water to the right and left equally, as represented in the drawings, to obviate any lateral'pressure on the journals which wouldl result from the reaction of the water on the screw part of the buckets if it discharged on one side only; but if on a vertical or inclined shaft the single wheel should be used, discharging the water downward, in which case the buckets maybe continued in a'spiral form indefinitely down the shaft. The flume A may be arranged either vertically or on an incline, as most convenient. The Water in passing' through the Wheel is made to change its course. After striking the buckets at the periphery of the wheel it converges toward the center and escapes laterally at nearly a right angle with its course in the scroll, or may be continued until perfectly at right angles thereto, or spirally down the shaft, as described above. It travels through the scroll B at a velocity due to the height of its column in the flume, and in its centripetal direction each revolution of the Water in a smaller circle than the preceding one would be performed in a proportionately less amount of time, provided it met with no resistance. Then supposing the orifice of discharge at the center of the Wheel to be half the diameter of the wheel, the water, if unobstructed, would at that point make two revolutions in the same time that it would occupy in performing one in the scroll at the periphery of the Wheel. Again, supposing the periphery of the wheel to travel at thel same velocity as the water in the scroll, the orifice of discharge being half the diameter would travel through half the space. Consequently the motion of the water at the discharge, if unchecked, would be double that of the Wheel at that point, andso inproportion at different parts of the wheel between said orifice and the periphery, and will therefore react upon the wheels buckets in proportion to such excess of motion of the water over that of the Wheel at the Various parts thereof. The water, en-

tering the scroll and passing around the periphery of the wheel, strikes with a direct pressure on the convex side of the bucket, the wheel revolving in the same direction that the water passes through the scroll. The water in being crowded toward the ais of the wheel maintains a continuous bearing on the bucket equivalent to the excess of motion of the water over that of the wheel, as

' above described, and the direction in which it strikes the bucket is such that it does not ilnpinge thereon, but follows smoothly round until it arrives at the discharge orifice, whereas if the water were to strike on the concave side of the bucket itrnust impinge to another point in its surface, so that the space between these two points of deflection on the bucket would be but slightly, if at all, affected by the pressure or reaction of the water, and considerable tlutterin g of the water and consequent unsteadiness of motion in the wheel would be the result, while in my wheel the fullest extent of the combined direct and reaction of the water is secured and the most perfect steadiness of motion in the Wheel isV D. S. I-IOVARD.

'Witnesses A. GREGORY, WM. M. SMITH.

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