US37833A - Improvement in water-wheels - Google Patents

Description

y UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JOHN TEMPLE, WILLIAM M. MILLS, AND ATLAS L. STOUT, OF MIDDLE- TOWN, OHIO.

IMPROVEMENT IN WATER-WHEELS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 3 7,833, dated March 3, 1833.

To all lwhom it may concern .Be it known that we, JOHN TEMPLE, WIL- LIAM M. MrLLs, and ATLAS L.- SroUT, of Middletown, in the county of Butler and State of Ohio, have invented a new and useful Improvem entin Water-Wheels; and we do hereby declare the following to be a full and exact description of the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings and the letters 0f reference thereon.

Figure I represents a horizontal plan view o? the wheel in section. Fig. Il is a vertical section of the same with our. improvement.

Our invention relates to certain improvements in that description of water-wheels known as the central-discharge horizontallysubmerged wheel, and the invention consists in the peculiar construction and formation of the ianges which constitute the top and bottom portions of the wheel, also, in the cornbination of these flanges with the cymavreversa scroll-buckets, whereby greater advantages are obtained by the use of any given force or head of water, while at the same time the construction is such as to be made or cast of metal with greater facility and at less expense, as herein more fully described.

In the drawings, A indicates the top iian ge or top part ot' the wheel. I3 refers to the lower an ge or portion of the wheel, and G indicates the buckets. O is the opening through which the water is discharged at the center of the wheel.

The two rims or ianges A B are inclined downward toward the center'of the wheel at an angle of about thirty-three degrees. The lower or bottom flange forms at the base of the buckets an inclined plane from the peripheryofthe wheel to the annular discharge-space within, and the top iange or rim has the same general inclination, as before stated, but is of a curved form, its inner surface being concave, as may be seen in the drawings at Fig. 2.

Although a good result may be secured by giving to the internal face of the upper iange a circular or cup formed depression, we have found in practice that this surface of the flange, to operate to the best advantage, should be curved on its internal surface or face from the periphery of the wheel to the annular discharge-opening, so that a vertical line drawn from a point at the center of the upper flange equdistant from the adjacent buckets, and from the outer and inner edges of the said upper rim or flange to acorrespending point on the lower rim or flange, will be of greater length than vertical lines drawn from the outer or inner edges of these `flanges; in other words, thedistance between the two rims or anges is greater at the center, owing to the curved form of the upper flange, than the distance at their edges.

The important objects attained in this improvement, which have proved highly suc cessful in use, are the combina-tion of such elements in the construction of water-wheels as will secure not only all the force of the direct action of the water upon the face of the scroll-buckets, but, in addition to this percussive action, in a great measure, convert the reaction or backlash to aid in propelling the wheel by giving a downward direction to the water in its reaction, and thus augment the force exerted by the hydrostatic pressure and gravity upon the inclined face of the bottom flange or rim ofthe wheel.

By the above-described formation and' construction we combine the advantages in a submerged horizontal water-wheel of the direct action and backlash, together with the hydrostatic pressure or gravity of a column of water, to propel the wheel in its forward revolutions. Thisimproved wheel is intended to be used with the improved sluice invented and patented by Jonn Temple, February S, 1859, said patent being numbered 22,901.

It will be readily understood that this waterwheel, as seen in the drawings, is composed of the two annular inclined rim or flanges, having the configuration, respectively, as above described, and between said anges or rims is interposed a series of cyma-reversa or scrollbuckets with corresponding ingress and egress passages.

In the operation of the wheel the water is admitted to the buckets through the adjustable gates and sluices, (described in the patent of John Temple, above referred to,) and acts directly upon the faces of the scroll-buckets by its full percussive force, is then deflected downward by means of the curved or concave face of the top ange or rim, thus adding to and augmenting the force of gravity exerted by the body of the water passing down the inclined plane of the lower o'r bottom flange, which also inipels' the Wheel in its forward revolutions.

One of the practical advantages of' the depression or curved form of the upper ange, besides that of deecting the cur;ent of Water toward the inclined plane ofthe bottom ange, is its tendency to retain a moving column of Water, Which shall act by hydrostatic pressure upon the inclined bottom ange, which is an inclined plane, declining not only from the periphery of the wheel toward its center, but also inclining tangentially from the in- .Y grress to the egress or disehargeopening, the

former being in advance of the latter as respects the direction of the movement of the wheel. By this means, also, We secure a continuously Wcdging and gravitating action of the Water from the time it has expended its percussive force upon the scroll-buckets until it reaches the finally-impinging point Where it is freely discharged.

JOHN TEMPLE. WM.. M. MILLS. ATLAS L. STOUT.

Witnesses:

G. REDDINGTON, H. P. K. PEcK.

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