Hydraulic efficiency of horizontal waterwheels: Laboratory data and CFD study for upgrading a western Himalayan watermill

T. Pujol, A.K. Vashisht, J. Ricart, D. Culubret and J. Velayos

Renewable Energy, 2015, vol. 83, issue C, 576-586

Abstract: Traditional waterwheels are widely used in remote areas as a source of mechanical energy for grinding grain. The classical design suffers of a very low hydraulic efficiency. The basic challenge is to increase the power output but not the rpms, with a desirable working regime in the range of 120–160 rpm. We study the hydraulic efficiency of waterwheels with analytical expressions and measured data from two laboratory scale designs in a variety of cases that differ in 1) blade inclination angle, 2) inclination angle of the water conduit, 3) blade geometry and 4) impact point of the waterjet on the blade surface. A waterwheel with blades with a notch in the upper edge does not improve the straight blade results. A very simple curved blade profile may enhance the hydraulic efficiency up to 46%. We analyze the performance of the new designs when applied to a real waterwheel located in the western Himalaya by means of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations. The maximum power delivered by the traditional wooden made waterwheel is 1.97 kW at 120 rpm. The waterwheel having 36 curved iron blades generates a power equal to 3.2 kW also at 120 rpm.

Keywords: Waterwheel; Impulse-type turbine; Watermill; Computational fluid dynamics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148115003493
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:83:y:2015:i:c:p:576-586

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2015.04.060

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().