Chapter 3

Water Wheels
In all likelihood, the earliest tools employed by humankind for crushing or grind-
ing seeds, nuts, and other food-stuffs consisted of little more than a at rock, upon
which the material was crushed by pounding with a stone or tree branch. The ar-
chaeological records show that as early as 30,000 years ago, Cro-Magnon artists
employed the mortar and pestle to grind and mix the pigments they used to create
their magnicent cave-art.
Far more efcient than the at rock or even the mortar and pestle was the hand-
mill, which appears to have long pre-dated the agricultural revolution. The handmill
consists of a at rock, often hollowed or concave, on which the grain, seeds, or other
materials is placed, and a grinding stone, which is rolled across the grain, thus re-
ducing the grain to our. Although the handmill is still, today, in use in many parts of
the world, approximately 2,000 years ago humankind began to harness water-power
Fig. 3.1 An overshot wheel. (Courtesy Daniel M. Short at Wikimedia)
9
10 3 Water Wheels
Fig. 3.2 Flour Mill at Barbegal near Arles in southern France dating from 4th century AD. (Cour-
tesy Jay Roundy)
to turn the stones that ground its grain. It was probably the rst tool for creating
mechanical energy to replace direct human and animal power [3].
The rst description of a water wheel is from Vitruvius, a Roman engineer (31
BC14 AD), who composed a 10 volume treatise on all aspects of Roman engineer-
ing. From classical times, there have existed three general varieties of water wheels:
the horizontal wheel and two variations of the vertical wheel see Hansen (on line
website). Figure 3.1 shows an overshot wheel commonly employed to grind grain.
3 Water Wheels 11
Fig. 3.3 Water Mill employed in China for iron casting. (Courtesy Wang Zhen from Wikipedia)
One of the most remarkable Roman applications of a waterwheel was at Barbegal
near Arles in southern France. Dating from the 4th century AD, the factory was an
immense our mill which employed 16 overshot water wheels, see Figure 3.2.
Waterpower was an important source of energy in ancient Chinese civilization.
One of the most intriguing applications was for iron casting; see Figure 3.3. Ac-
cording to an ancient text, in 31 AD the engineer Tu Shih invented a water-powered
reciprocator for the casting of [iron] agricultural implements. Waterpower was also
applied at an early date to the grinding of grain. Large rotary mill appeared in China
about the same time as in Europe (2nd century BC). But while for centuries Europe
relied heavily on slave and donkey-powered mills, in China the waterwheel was a
critical power supplier.
Renaissance engineers studied the waterwheel and realized that the action of
water on a wheel with blades would be much more effective if the entire wheel were
somehow enclosed in a kind of chamber. They knew very well that only a small
amount of the water pushing or falling on a wheel blade or paddle actually strikes it,
and that much of the energy contained in the onrushing water is lost or never actually
captured. Enclosing the wheel and channeling the water through this chamber would
result in a machine of greater efciency and power. However, they were hampered
by lack of any theoretical understanding of hydraulics. Both of these problems were
resolved to some degree in the eighteenth century, with one of the earliest examples
of a reaction turbine being built in 1750 by the German mathematician and naturalist
Johann Andres von Segner (17041777) [4]. In his system, the moving water entered
a cylindrical box containing the shaft of a runner or rotor and owed out through
tangential openings, acting with its weight on the inclined vanes of the wheel.
12 3 Water Wheels
These developments occurred during a signicant period of scientic revolution
and renaissance. Euler founded by this period Scienta Navalis, a new branch of
science rational mechanics [1], treats ideal uids in the rst volume and on the
seafaring and ship engineering in the second volume. To a great degree, we owe
to Euler the principles of the impeller drive and the screw. In his time these were
considered only as theory; however, Eulers experiments on Segners water-powered
machine and the related theory of water turbines are well known.
References
1. Fellmann, E.A. (2007) Leonhard Euler, translated by E. Gautschi and W. Gautschi, Birkhuser
Verlag, Berlin.
2. Hansen, R.D. Water wheels, http://www.waterhistory.org/histories/waterwheels and
http://www.waterhistory.org/gallery/histories/barbegal/aap.jpg.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1.
3. Hodge, A.T. (1990) A Roman factory, Scientic American, November Issue, p. 106.
4. Kaiser, W. (1977) Johann Andreas Segner: Der Vater der Turbine, Leipzig.