General > Waterwheels

Waterwheels

Littler- Gordon can construct waterwheels to your specification and carry out the installation.

General Information on Water Wheels
A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, the development of hydropower. In the Middle Ages, waterwheels were used as tools to power factories throughout different counties.

The alternatives were the windmill and human and animal power. The most common use of the water wheel was to mill flour in gristmills, but other uses included foundry work and machining, and pounding linen for use in the manufacture of paper.

A water wheel consists of a large wooden or metal wheel, with a number of blades or buckets arranged on the outside rim forming the driving surface. Most commonly, the wheel is mounted vertically on a horizontal axle, but the tub or Norse wheel is mounted horizontally on a vertical shaft.

Vertical wheels can transmit power either through the axle or via a ring gear and typically drive belts or gears; horizontal wheels usually directly drive their load.

A mill pond is formed when a flowing stream is dammed to feed a waterwheel. A channel for the water flowing to or from a water wheel is called a mill race (also spelled millrace) or simply a "race", and is customarily divided into sections.

The race bringing water from the mill pond to the water wheel is a headrace; the one carrying water after it has left the wheel is commonly referred to as a tailrace

The main difficulty of water wheels was their inseparability from water. This meant that mills often needed to be located far from population centers and away from natural resources.

Water mills were still in commercial use well into the twentieth century, however.

Modern Hydro-electric dams can be viewed as the descendants of the water wheel as they too take advantage of the movement of water downhill.

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