Water Wheel (2024)

FAQs

What is the water wheel thing called? ›

A watermill or water mill is a mill that uses hydropower. It is a structure that uses a water wheel or water turbine to drive a mechanical process such as milling (grinding), rolling, or hammering.

The reason water wheels are not a great source of power is that they are large and cumbersome and so do not rotate rapidly enough to generate much energy. If done correctly however, a well-placed and built water wheel could generate enough electricity to power a house or small farm.

Once upon a time, a Chinese inventor Duan Xu modified irrigation machinery of Yunnan Province and invented his water wheel. His design was of 20 meters in diameter, able to lift water to a height of 15 meters, which was fed then by pipes and canals to irrigate nearby fields.

It is known that the Greeks used water wheels to grind flour more than 2,000 years ago. There is evidence that water wheels were also used in China, and the French are responsible for creating one of the first hydropower turbines in the mid-1700s.

Water wheels were still in commercial use well into the 20th century, but they are no longer in common use today. Uses included milling flour in gristmills, grinding wood into pulp for papermaking, hammering wrought iron, machining, ore crushing and pounding fibre for use in the manufacture of cloth.

waterwheel, mechanical device for tapping the energy of running or falling water by means of a set of paddles mounted around a wheel. The force of the moving water is exerted against the paddles, and the consequent rotation of the wheel is transmitted to machinery via the shaft of the wheel.

At the simplest level, the waterwheel represents stillness in motion, and motion in stillness. It is the energy of the river that turns the wheel, and is in turn transformed into a useful outcome through the strength of interaction of the wheel and nature.

The earliest known version of the water wheel comes from mid-4th century BC Mesopotamia, a horizontal, propeller-like contraption that was used to turn millstones for grinding flour. It proved to be effective and the design was caught on in southern Europe and China.

The three types of waterwheels are the horizontal waterwheel, the undershot vertical waterwheel, and the overshot vertical waterwheel.

For nearly 500 years, the Noria al-Muhammadiya was the tallest waterwheel in the world. In 1854 it was surpassed by the Laxey Wheel, a mine-pumping waterwheel on the Isle of Man, an island between England and Ireland. The Laxey Wheel is only marginally taller, with a diameter of 22.1 metres (73 feet).

What country made the water wheel? ›

Just how old are waterwheels? They were first made by the ancient Greeks over 3,000 years ago. They spread across Europe and were widely used by medieval times. Separately, the horizontal waterwheel was invented in China sometime in the 1st century C.E.

A waterwheel is a simple turbine—a device with buckets, paddles or blades that is rotated by moving water, converting the kinetic energy of water into mechanical movement. Hydroelectric power plants use huge and more complex turbines to generate electricity.

A waterwheel is a simple turbine—a device with buckets, paddles or blades that is rotated by moving water, converting the kinetic energy of water into mechanical movement.

Overshot Wheels

The overshot vertical wheel was a much more efficient device. Water was fed at the top of the overshot wheel into “buckets” or containers built into the wheel's circumference, and the weight of the impounded water, rather than its impact, turned the wheel.