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ELECTRICITY FOR THE FARM
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS
ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., Limited
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA · MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO
[Illustration: Even the tiny trout brook becomes a thing of utility
as well as of joy
(_Courtesy of the Fitz Water Wheel Company, Hanover, Pa._)]
ELECTRICITY FOR
THE FARM
LIGHT, HEAT AND POWER BY INEXPENSIVE
METHODS FROM THE WATER
WHEEL OR FARM ENGINE
BY
FREDERICK IRVING ANDERSON
AUTHOR OF "THE FARMER OF TO-MORROW," ETC., ETC.
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1915
_All rights reserved_
Copyright, 1915
By THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
The Country Gentleman
Copyright, 1915
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1915.
PREFACE
This book is designed primarily to give the farmer a practical working
knowledge of electricity for use as light, heat, and power on the
farm. The electric generator, the dynamo, is explained in detail; and
there are chapters on electric transmission and house-wiring, by which
the farm mechanic is enabled to install his own plant without the aid
and expense of an expert.
With modern appliances, within the means of the average farmer, the
generation of electricity, with its unique conveniences, becomes
automatic, provided some dependable source of power is to be had--such
as a water wheel, gasoline (or other form of internal combustion)
engine, or the ordinary windmill. The water wheel is the ideal prime
mover for the dynamo in isolated plants. Since water-power is running
to waste on tens of thousands of our farms throughout the country,
several chapters are devoted to this phase of the subject: these
include descriptions and working diagrams of weirs and other simple
devices for measuring the flow of streams; there are tables and
formulas by which any one, with a knowledge of simple arithmetic, may
determine the power to be had from falling water under given
conditions; and in addition, there are diagrams showing in general the
method of construction of dams, bulkheads, races, flumes, etc., from
materials usually to be found on a farm. The tiny unconsidered brook
that waters the farm pasture frequently possesses power enough to
supply the farmstead with clean, cool, safe light in place of the
dangerous, inconvenient oil lamp; a small stream capable of developing
from twenty-five to fifty horsepower will supply a farmer (at
practically no expense beyond the original cost of installation) not
only with light, but with power for even the heavier farm operations,
as threshing; and in addition will do the washing, ironing, and
cooking, and at the same time keep the house warm in the coldest
weather. Less than one horsepower of energy will light the farmstead;
less than five horsepower of energy will provide light and small
power, and take the drudgery out of the kitchen.
For those not fortunate enough to possess water-power which can be
developed, there are chapters on the use of the farm gasoline engine
and windmill, in connection with the modern storage battery, as
sources of electric current.
It is desired to make acknowledgment for illustrations and assistance
in gathering material for the book, to the editors of _The Country
Gentleman_, Philadelphia, Pa.; The Crocker-Wheeler Company, Ampere, N.
J.; The General Electric Company, Schenectady, N. Y.; the Weston
Electrical Instrument Company, of Newark, N. J.; The Chase Turbine
Manufacturing Company, Orange, Mass.; the C. P. Bradway Machine Works,
West Stafford, Conn.; The Pelton Water Wheel Company, San Francisco
and New York; the Ward Leonard Manufacturing Company, Bronxville, N.
Y.; The Fairbanks, Morse Company, Chicago; and the Fitz Water Wheel
Company, Hanover, Pa.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION xvii
PART I
WATER-POWER
CHAPTER I
A WORKING PLANT
The "agriculturist"--An old chair factory--A neighbor's
home-coming--The idle wheel in commission again--Light,
heat and power for nothing--Advantages
of electricity 3
CHAPTER II
A LITTLE PROSPECTING
Small amount of water required for an electric
plant--Exploring, on a dull day--A rough and ready
weir--What a little water will do--The water wheel
and the dynamo--Electricity consumed the instant
it is produced--The price of the average small
plant, not counting labor 22
CHAPTER III
HOW TO MEASURE WATER-POWER
What is a horsepower?--How the Carthaginians
manufactured horsepower--All that goes up must come
down--How the sun lifts water up for us to
use--Water the ideal power for generating
electricity--The weir--Table for estimating
flow of streams with a weir--Another method of
measuring--Figuring water horsepower--The size
of the wheel--What head is required--Quantity of
water necessary 32
CHAPTER IV
THE WATER WHEEL AND HOW TO INSTALL IT
Different types of water wheels--The impulse and the
reaction wheels--The impulse wheel adapted to
high heads and small amount of water--Pipe lines--Table
of resistance in pipes--Advantages and disadvantages
of the impulse wheel--Other forms
of impulse wheels--The reaction turbine, suited to
low heads and large quantity of water--Its advantages
and limitations--Developing a water-power
project: the dam; the race; the flume; the penstock;
and the tailrace--Water rights for the farmer 56
PART II
ELECTRICITY
CHAPTER V
THE DYNAMO; WHAT IT DOES, AND HOW
Electricity compared to the heat and light of the
Sun--The simple dynamo--The amount of electric energy
a dynamo will generate--The modern dynamo--Measuring
power in terms of electricity--The volt--The
ampere--The ohm--The watt and the kilowatt--Ohm's
Law of the electric circuit, and some
examples of its application--Direct current, and
alternating current--Three types of direct-current
dynamos: series, shunt, and compound 89
CHAPTER VI
WHAT SIZE PLANT TO INSTALL
The farmer's wife his partner--Little and big
plants--Limiting factors--Fluctuations in water
supply--The average plant--The actual plant--Amount
of current required for various operations--Standard
voltage--A specimen allowance for electric
light--Heating and cooking by electricity--Electric
power: the electric motor 121
CHAPTER VII
TRANSMISSION LINES
Copper wire--Setting of poles--Loss of power in
transmission--Ohm's Law and examples of how it is
used in figuring size of wire--Copper-wire
tables--Examples of transmission lines--When to
use high voltages--Over-compounding a dynamo to
overcome transmission loss 153
CHAPTER VIII
WIRING THE HOUSE
The insurance code--Different kinds of wiring
described--Wooden moulding cheap and effective--The
distributing panel--Branch circuits--Protecting the
circuits--The use of porcelain tubes and other
insulating devices--Putting up chandeliers and
wall-brackets--"Multiple" connections--How to connect
a wall switch--Special wiring required for heat and
power circuits--Knob and cleat wiring, its advantages
and disadvantages 172
CHAPTER IX
THE ELECTRIC PLANT AT WORK
Direct-connected generating sets--Belt drive--The
switchboard--Governors and voltage regulators--Methods
of achieving constant pressure at all loads:
Over-compounding the dynamo; A system of resistances
(a home-made electric radiator); Regulating
voltage by means of the rheostat--Automatic
devices--Putting the plant in operation 192
PART III
GASOLINE ENGINES, WINDMILLS, ETC.
THE STORAGE BATTERIES
CHAPTER X
GASOLINE ENGINE PLANTS
The standard voltage set--Two-cycle and four-cycle
gasoline engines--Horsepower, and fuel
consumption--Efficiency of small engines and
generators--Cost of operating a one-kilowatt plant 217
CHAPTER XI
THE STORAGE BATTERY
What a storage battery does--The lead battery and the
Edison battery--Economy of tungsten lamps for
storage batteries--The low-voltage battery for
electric light--How to figure the capacity of a
battery--Table of light requirements for a farm
house--Watt-hours and lamp-hours--The cost of storage
battery current--How to charge a storage
battery--Care of storage batteries 229
CHAPTER XII
BATTERY CHARGING DEVICES
The automatic plant most desirable--How an automobile
lighting and starting system works--How the same
results can be achieved in house lighting, by means
of automatic devices--Plants without automatic
regulation--Care necessary--The use of heating devices
on storage battery current--Portable batteries--An
electricity "route"--Automobile power for
lighting a few lamps 250
ILLUSTRATIONS
Even the tiny trout brook becomes a thing of utility as
well as of joy _Frontispiece_
Farm labor and materials built this crib and stone dam 17
Measuring a small stream with a weir 23
Efficient modern adaptations of the archaic undershot
and overshot water wheels 59
A direct-current dynamo or motor, showing details of
construction 92
Details of voltmeter or ammeter 128
Instantaneous photograph of high-pressure water jet being
quenched by buckets of a tangential wheel 194
A tangential wheel, and a dynamo keyed to the same
shaft--the ideal method for generating electricity 194
A rough-and-ready farm electric plant, supplying two
farms with light, heat and power; and a Ward
Leonard-type circuit breaker for charging storage
batteries 244
INTRODUCTION
The sight of a dozen or so fat young horses and mares feeding and
frolicking on the wild range of the Southwest would probably inspire
the average farmer as an awful example of horsepower running to waste.
If, by some miracle, he came on such a sight in his own pastures, he
would probably consume much time practising the impossible art of
"creasing" the wild creatures with a rifle bullet--after the style of
Kit Carson and other free rovers of the old prairies when they were in
need of a new mount. He would probably spend uncounted hours behind
the barn learning to throw a lariat; and one fine day he would sally
forth to capture a horsepower or two--and, once captured, he would use
strength and strategy breaking the wild beast to harness. A single
horsepower--animal--will do the work of lifting 23,000 pounds one foot
in one minute, providing the animal is young, and sound, and is fed
12 quarts of oats and 10 or 15 pounds of hay a day, and is given a
chance to rest 16 hours out of 24--providing also it has a dentist to
take care of its teeth occasionally, and a blacksmith chiropodist to
keep it in shoes. On the hoof, this horsepower is worth about
$200--unless the farmer is looking for something fancy in the way of
drafters, when he will have to go as high as $400 for a big fellow.
And after 10 or 15 years, the farmer would look around for another
horse, because an animal grows old.
This animal horsepower isn't a very efficient horsepower. In fact, it
is less than three-fourths of an actual horsepower, as engineers use
the term. A real horsepower will do the work of lifting 33,000 pounds
one foot in one minute--or 550 pounds one foot in one second. Burn a
pint of gasoline, with 14 pounds of air, in a gasoline engine, and the
engine will supply one 33,000-pound horsepower for an hour. The
gasoline will cost about 2 cents, and the air is supplied free. If it
was the air that cost two cents a pound, instead of the gasoline, the
automobile industry would undoubtedly stop where it began some fifteen
years ago. It is human nature, however, to grumble over this two
cents.
Yet the average farmer who would get excited if sound young chunks and
drafters were running wild across his pastures, is not inspired by any
similar desire of possession and mastery by the sight of a brook, or a
rivulet that waters his meadows. This brook or river is flowing down
hill to the sea. Every 4,000 gallons that falls one foot in one
minute; every 400 gallons that falls 10 feet in one minute; or every
40 gallons that falls 100 feet in one minute, means the power of one
horse going to waste--not the $200 flesh-and-blood kind that can lift
only 23,000 pounds a foot a minute--but the 33,000 foot-pound kind.
Thousands of farms have small streams in their very dooryard, capable
of developing five, ten, twenty, fifty horsepower twenty-four hours a
day, for the greater part of the year. Within a quarter of a mile of
the great majority of farms (outside of the dry lands themselves)
there are such streams. Only a small fraction of one per cent of them
have been put to work, made to pay their passage from the hills to the
sea.
The United States government geological survey engineers recently made
an estimate of the waterfalls capable of developing 1,000 horsepower
and over, that are running to waste, unused, in this country. They
estimated that there is available, every second of the day and night,
some 30,000,000 horsepower, in dry weather--and twice this during the
eight wet months of the year. The waterfall capable of giving up 1,000
horsepower in energy is not the subject of these chapters. It is the
small streams--the brooks, the creeks, the rivulets--which feed the
1,000 horsepower torrents, make them possible, that are of interest to
the farmer. These small streams thread every township, every county,
seeking the easiest way to the main valleys where they come together
in great rivers.
What profitable crop on your farm removes the least plant food? A
bee-farmer enters his honey for the prize in this contest. Another
farmer maintains that his ice-crop is the winner. But electricity
generated from falling water of a brook meandering across one's acres,
comes nearer to the correct answer of how to make something out of
nothing. It merely utilizes the wasted energy of water rolling down
hill--the weight of water, the pulling power of gravity. Water is
still water, after it has run through a turbine wheel to turn an
electric generator. It is still wet; it is there for watering the
stock; and a few rods further down stream, where it drops five or ten
feet again, it can be made to do the same work over again--and over
and over again as long as it continues to fall, on its journey to the
sea. The city of Los Angeles has a municipal water plant, generating
200,000 horsepower of electricity, in which the water is used three
times in its fall of 6,000 feet; and in the end, where it runs out of
the race in the valley, it is sold for irrigation.
One water-horsepower will furnish light for the average farm; five
water-horsepower will furnish light and power, and do the ironing and
baking. The cost of installing a plant of five water-horsepower should
not exceed the cost of one sound young horse, the $200 kind--under
conditions which are to be found on thousands of farms and farm
communities in the East, the Central West, and the Pacific States.
This electrical horsepower will work 24 hours a day, winter and
summer, and the farmer would not have to grow oats and hay for it on
land that might better be used in growing food for human beings. It
would not become "aged" at the end of ten or fifteen years, and the
expense of maintenance would be practically nothing after the first
cost of installation. It would require only water as food--waste
water. Two hundred and fifty cubic feet of water a minute, falling ten
feet, will supply the average farm with all the conveniences of
electricity. This is a very modest creek--the kind of brook or creek
that is ignored by the man who would think time well spent in putting
in a week capturing a wild horse, if a miracle should send such a
beast within reach. And the task of harnessing and breaking this
water-horsepower is much more simple and less dangerous than the task
of breaking a colt to harness.
PART I
WATER-POWER
ELECTRICITY FOR THE FARM
CHAPTER I
A WORKING PLANT
The "agriculturist"--An old chair factory--A neighbor's
home-coming--The idle wheel in commission again--Light, heat and
power for nothing--Advantages of electricity.
Let us take an actual instance of one man who did go ahead and find
out by experience just how intricate and just how simple a thing
electricity from farm water-power is. This man's name was Perkins, or,
we will call him that, in relating this story.
Perkins was what some people call, not a farmer, but an
"agriculturist,"--that is, he was a back-to-the-land man. He had been
born and raised on a farm. He knew that you must harness a horse on
the left side, milk a cow on the right, that wagon nuts tighten the
way the wheel rims, and that a fresh egg will not float.
He had a farm that would grow enough clover to fill the average dairy
if he fed it lime; he had a boy coming to school age; and both he and
his wife wanted to get back to the country. They had their little
savings, and they wanted, first of all, to take a vacation, getting
acquainted with their farm. They hadn't taken a vacation in fifteen
years.
He moved in, late in the summer, and started out to get acquainted
with his neighbors, as well as his land. This was in the New England
hills. Water courses cut through everywhere. In regard to its
bountiful water supply, the neighborhood had much in common with all
the states east of the Mississippi, along the Atlantic seaboard, in
the lake region of the central west, and in the Pacific States. With
this difference; the water courses in his neighborhood had once been
of economic importance.
A mountain river flowed down his valley. Up and down the valley one
met ramshackle mills, fallen into decay. Many years ago before
railroads came, before it was easy to haul coal from place to place
to make steam, these little mills were centers of thriving industries,
which depended on the power of falling water to make turned articles,
spin cotton, and so forth. Then the railroads came, and it was easy to
haul coal to make steam. And the same railroads that hauled the coal
to make steam, were there to haul away the articles manufactured by
steam power. So in time the little manufacturing plants on the river
back in the hills quit business and moved to railroad stations. Then
New England, from being a manufacturing community made up of many
small isolated water plants, came to be a community made up of huge
arteries and laterals of smoke stacks that fringed the railroads.
Where the railroad happened to follow a river course--as the
Connecticut River--the water-power plants remained; but the little
plants back in the hills were wiped off the map--because steam power
with railroads at the front door proved cheaper than water-power with
railroads ten miles away.
One night Perkins came in late from a long drive with his next-door
neighbor. He had learned the first rule of courtesy in the country,
which is to unhitch his own side of the horse and help back the buggy
into the shed. They stumbled around in the barn putting up the horse,
and getting down hay and grain for it, by the light of an oil lantern,
which was set on the floor in a place convenient to be kicked over. He
went inside and took supper by the light of a smoky smelly oil lamp,
that filled the room full of dark corners; and when supper was over,
the farmwife groped about in the cellar putting things away by the
light of a candle.
The next day his neighbor was grinding cider at his ramshackle water
mill--one of the operations for which a week must be set aside every
fall. Perkins sat on a log and listened to the crunch-crunch of the
apples in the chute, and the drip of the frothy yellow liquid that
fell into waiting buckets.
"How much power have you got here?" he asked.
"Thirty or forty horsepower, I guess."
"What do you do with it, besides grinding cider to pickle your
neighbors' digestion with?"
"Nothing much. I've got a planer and a moulding machine in there, to
work up jags of lumber occasionally. That's all. This mill was a
chair-factory in my grandfather's day, back in 1830."
"Do you use it thirty days in a year?"
"No; not half that."
"What are you going to do with it this winter?"
"Nothing; I keep the gate open and the wheel turning, so it won't
freeze, but nothing else. I am going to take the family to Texas to
visit my wife's folks for three months. We've worked hard enough to
take a vacation."
"Will you rent me the mill while you are gone?"
"Go ahead; you can have it for nothing, if you will watch the ice."
"All right; let me know when you come back and I'll drive to town and
bring you home."
* * * * *
Three months went by, and one day in February the city man, in
response to a letter, hitched up and drove to town to bring his
neighbor back home. It was four o'clock in the afternoon when they
started out, and it was six--dark--when they turned the bend in the
road to the farm house. They helped the wife and children out, with
their baggage, and as Perkins opened the door of the house, he reached
up on the wall and turned something that clicked sharply.
Instantly light sprang from everywhere. In the barn-yard a street lamp
with an 18-inch reflector illuminated all under it for a space of 100
feet with bright white rays of light. Another street lamp hung over
the watering trough. The barn doors and windows burst forth in light.
There was not a dark corner to be found anywhere. In the house it was
the same. Perkins led the amazed procession from room to room of the
house they had shut up for the winter. On the wall in the hall
outside of every room was a button which he pushed, and the room
became as light as day before they entered. The cellar door, in
opening, automatically lighted a lamp illuminating that cavern as it
had never been lighted before since the day a house was built over it.
Needless to say, the farmer and his family were reduced to a state of
speechlessness.
"How the deuce did you do it?" finally articulated the farmer.
"I put your idle water wheel to work," said Perkins; and then,
satisfied with this exhibition, he put them back in the sleigh and
drove to his home, where his wife had supper waiting.
While the men were putting up the team in the electric lighted barn,
the farmwife went into the kitchen. Her hostess was cooking supper on
an electric stove. It looked like a city gas range and it cooked all
their meals, and did the baking besides. A hot-water tank stood
against the wall, not connected to anything hot, apparently. But it
was scalding hot, by virtue of a little electric water heater the size
of a quart tin can, connected at the bottom. Twenty-four hours a day
the water wheel pumped electricity into that "can," so that hot water
was to be had at any hour simply by turning a faucet. In the laundry
there was an electric pump that kept the tank in the attic filled
automatically. When the level of water in this tank fell to a certain
point, a float operated a switch that started the pump; and when the
water level reached a certain height, the same float stopped the pump.
A small motor, the size of a medium Hubbard squash operated a washing
machine and wringer on wash days. This same motor was a
man-of-all-work for this house, for, when called on, it turned the
separator, ground and polished knives and silverware, spun the sewing
machine, and worked the vacuum cleaner.
Over the dining room table hung the same hanging shade of old days,
but the oil lamp itself was gone. In its place was a 100-watt
tungsten lamp whose rays made the white table cloth fairly glisten.
The wires carrying electricity to this lamp were threaded through the
chains reaching to the ceiling, and one had to look twice to see where
the current came from. In the sitting room, a cluster of electric
bulbs glowed from a fancy wicker work basket that hung from the
ceiling. The housewife had made use of what she had throughout the
house. Old-fashioned candle-shades sat like cocked hats astride
electric bulbs. There is little heat to an electric bulb for the
reason that the white-hot wire that gives the light is made to burn in
high vacuum, which transmits heat very slowly. The housewife had taken
advantage of this fact and from every corner gleamed lights dressed in
fancy designs of tissue paper and silk.
"Now we will talk business," said Perkins when supper was over and
they had lighted their pipes.
The returned native looked dubious. His New England training had
warned him long ago that one cannot expect to get something for
nothing, and he felt sure there was a joker in this affair.
"How much do I owe you?" he asked.
"Nothing," said Perkins. "You furnish the water-power with your idle
wheel, and I furnish the electric installation. This is only a small
plant I have put in, but it gives us enough electricity to go around,
with a margin for emergencies. I have taken the liberty of wiring your
house and your horse-barn and cow-barn and your barn-yard. Altogether,
I suppose you have 30 lights about the place, and during these long
winter days you will keep most of them going from 3 to 5 hours a night
and 2 or 3 hours in the early morning. If you were in town, those
lights would cost you about 12 cents an hour, at the commercial rate
of electricity. Say 60 cents a day--eighteen dollars a month. That
isn't a very big electric light bill for some people I know in
town--and they consider themselves lucky to have the privilege of
buying electricity at that rate. Your wheel is running all winter to
prevent ice from forming and smashing it. It might just as well be
spinning the dynamo.
"If you think it worth while," continued Perkins,--"this $18 worth of
light you have on tap night and morning, or any hour of the day,--we
will say the account is settled. That is, of course, if you will give
me the use of half the electricity that your idle wheel is grinding
out with my second-hand dynamo. We have about eight electrical
horsepower on our wires, without overloading the machine. Next spring
I am going to stock up this place; and I think about the first thing I
do, when my dairy is running, will be to put in a milking machine and
let electricity do the milking for me. It will also fill my silo,
grind my mowing-machine knives, saw my wood, and keep water running in
my barn. You will probably want to do the same.
"But what it does for us men in the barn and barn-yard, isn't to be
compared to what it does for the women in the house. When my wife
wants a hot oven she presses a button. When she wants to put the
'fire' out, she presses another. That's all there is to it. No heat,
no smoke, no ashes. The same with ironing--and washing. No oil lamps
to fill, no wicks to trim, no chimneys to wash, no kerosene to kick
over and start a fire."
"You say the current you have put in my house would cost me about $18
a month, in town."
"Yes, about that. Making electricity from coal costs money."
"What does it cost here?"
"Practically nothing. Your river, that has been running to waste ever
since your grandfather gave up making chairs, does the work. There is
nothing about a dynamo to wear out, except the bearings, and these can
be replaced once every five or ten years for a trifle. The machine
needs to be oiled and cared for--fill the oil cups about once in three
days. Your water wheel needs the same attention. That's all there is
to it. You can figure the cost of your current yourself--just about
the cost of the lubricating oil you use--and the cost of the time you
give it--about the same time you give to any piece of good machinery,
from a sulky plow to a cream separator."
This is a true story. This electric plant, where Perkins furnishes the
electric end, and his neighbor the water-power, has been running now
for two years, grinding out electricity for the two places twenty-four
hours a day. Perkins was not an electrical engineer. He was just a
plain intelligent American citizen who found sufficient knowledge in
books to enable him to install and operate this plant. Frequently he
is away for long periods, but his neighbor (who has lost his original
terror of electricity) takes care of the plant. In fact, this farmer
has given a lot of study to the thing, through curiosity, until he
knows fully as much about it now as his city neighbor.
He had the usual idea, at the start, that a current strong enough to
light a 100 candlepower lamp would kick like a mule if a man happened
to get behind it. He watched the city man handle bare wires and
finally he plucked up courage to do it himself.
It was a 110-volt current, the pressure used in our cities for
domestic lighting. The funny part about it was, the farmer could not
feel it at all at first. His fingers were calloused and no current
could pass through them. Finally he sandpapered his fingers and tried
it again. Then he was able to get the "tickle" of 110 volts. It wasn't
so deadly after all--about the strength of a weak medical battery,
with which every one is familiar. A current of 110 volts cannot do any
harm to the human body unless contact is made over a very large
surface, which is impossible unless a man goes to a lot of trouble to
make such a contact. A current of 220 volts pressure--the pressure
used in cities for motors--has a little more "kick" to it, but still
is not uncomfortable. When the pressure rises to 500 volts (the
pressure used in trolley wires for street cars), it begins to be
dangerous. But there is no reason why a farm plant should be over 110
volts, under usual conditions; engineers have decided on this pressure
as the best adapted to domestic use, and manufacturers who turn out
the numerous electrical devices, such as irons, toasters, massage
machines, etc., fit their standard instruments to this voltage.
[Illustration: Farm labor and materials built this crib and stone
dam]
As to the cost of this co-operative plant--it was in the neighborhood
of $200. As we have said, it provided eight electrical horsepower on
tap at any hour of the day or night--enough for the two farms, and a
surplus for neighbors, if they wished to string lines and make use of
it.
The dynamo, a direct-current machine, 110 volts pressure, and what is
known in the trade as "compound,"--that is, a machine that maintains a
constant pressure automatically and does not require an attendant--was
picked up second-hand, through a newspaper "ad" and cost $90. The
switchboard, a make-shift affair, not very handsome, but just as
serviceable as if it were made of marble, cost less than $25 all told.
The transmission wire cost $19 a hundred pounds; it is of copper, and
covered with weatherproofed tape. Perkins bought a 50-cent book on
house-wiring, and did the wiring himself, the way the book told him
to, a simple operation. For fixtures, as we have said, his wife
devised fancy shades out of Mexican baskets, tissue paper, and silk,
in which are hidden electric globes that glow like fire-flies at the
pressing of a button. The lamps themselves are mostly old-style carbon
lamps, which can be bought at 16 cents each retail. In his living room
and dining room he used the new-style tungsten lamps instead of
old-style carbon. These cost 30 cents each. Incandescent lamps are
rated for 1,000 hours useful life. The advantage of tungsten lights is
that they give three times as much light for the same expenditure of
current as carbon lights. This is a big advantage in the city, where
current is costly; but it is not so much of an advantage in the
country where a farmer has plenty of water-power--because his current
costs him practically nothing, and he can afford to be wasteful of it
to save money in lamps. Another advantage he has over his city cousin:
In town, an incandescent lamp is thrown away after it has been used
1,000 hours because after that it gives only 80% of the light it did
when new--quite an item when one is paying for current. The experience
of Perkins and his neighbor in their coöperative plant has been that
they have excess light anyway, and if a few bulbs fall off a fifth in
efficiency, it is not noticeable. As a matter of fact most of their
bulbs have been in use without replacing for the two years the plant
has been in operation. The lamps are on the wall or the ceiling, out
of the way, not liable to be broken; so the actual expense in
replacing lamps is less than for lamp chimneys in the old days.
Insurance companies recognize that a large percentage of farm fires
comes from the use of kerosene; for this reason, they are willing to
make special rates for farm homes lighted by electricity. They
prescribe certain rules for wiring a house, and they insist that their
agent inspect and pass such wiring before current is turned on. Once
the wiring is passed, the advantage is all in favor of the farmer
with electricity over the farmer with kerosene. The National Board of
Fire Underwriters is sufficiently logical in its demands, and powerful
enough, so that manufacturers who turn out the necessary fittings find
no sale for devices that do not conform to insurance standards.
Therefore it is difficult to go wrong in wiring a house.
Finally, as to the added value a water-power electric plant adds to
the selling price of a farm. Let the farmer answer this question for
himself. If he can advertise his farm for sale, with a paragraph
running: "Hydroelectric plant on the premises, furnishing electricity
for light, heat, and power"--what do you suppose a wide-awake
purchaser would be willing to pay for that? Perkins and his neighbor
believe that $1,000 is a very modest estimate added by their electric
plant to both places. And they talk of doing still more. They use only
a quarter of the power of the water that is running to waste through
the wheel. They are figuring on installing a larger dynamo, of say 30
electrical horse-power, which will provide clean, dry, safe heat for
their houses even on the coldest days in winter. When they have done
this, they will consider that they are really putting their small
river to work.
CHAPTER II
A LITTLE PROSPECTING
Small amount of water required for an electric plant--Exploring, on
a dull day--A rough and ready weir--What a little water will
do--The water wheel and the dynamo--Electricity consumed the
instant it is produced--The price of the average small plant, not
counting labor.
The average farmer makes the mistake of considering that one must have
a river of some size to develop power of any practical use. On your
next free day do a little prospecting. We have already said that 250
cubic feet of water falling 10 feet a minute will provide light, heat
and small motor power for the average farm. A single water horsepower
will generate enough electricity to provide light for the house and
barn. But let us take five horsepower as a desirable minimum in this
instance.
[Illustration: Measuring a small stream with a weir]
In your neighborhood there is a creek three or four feet wide,
toiling along day by day, at its task of watering your fields. Find a
wide board a little longer than the width of this creek you have
scorned. Set it upright across the stream between the banks, so that
no water flows around the ends or under it. It should be high enough
to set the water back to a dead level for a few feet upstream, before
it overflows. Cut a gate in this board, say three feet wide and ten
inches deep, or according to the size of a stream. Cut this gate from
the top, so that all the water of the stream will flow through the
opening, and still maintain a level for several feet back of the
board.
This is what engineers call a weir, a handy contrivance for measuring
the flow of small streams. Experts have figured out an elaborate
system of tables as to weirs. All we need to do now, in this rough
survey, is to figure out the number of square inches of water flowing
through this opening and falling on the other side. With a rule,
measure the depth of the overflowing water, from the bottom of the
opening to the top of the dead level of the water behind the board.
Multiply this depth by the width of the opening, which will give the
square inches of water escaping. For every square inch of this water
escaping, engineers tell us that stream is capable of delivering,
roughly, one cubic foot of water a minute.
Thus, if the water is 8 inches deep in an opening 32 inches wide, then
the number of cubic feet this stream is delivering each minute is 8
times 32, or 256 cubic feet a minute. So, a stream 32 inches wide,
with a uniform depth of 8 inches running through our weir is capable
of supplying the demands of the average farm in terms of electricity.
Providing, of course, that the lay of the land is such that this water
can be made to fall 10 feet into a water wheel.
Go upstream and make a rough survey of the fall. In the majority of
instances (unless this is some sluggish stream in a flat prairie) it
will be found feasible to divert the stream from its main channel by
means of a race--an artificial channel--and to convey it to a not
far-distant spot where the necessary fall can be had at an angle of
about 30 degrees from horizontal.
If you find there is _twice_ as much water as you need for the amount
of power you require, a five-foot fall will give the same result. Or,
if there is only _one-half_ as much water as the 250 cubic feet
specified, you can still obtain your theoretical five horsepower if
the means are at hand for providing a fall of twenty feet instead of
ten. Do not make the very common mistake of figuring that a stream is
delivering a cubic foot a minute to each square inch of weir opening,
simply because it _fills_ a certain opening. It is the excess water,
falling _over_ the opening, after the stream has set back to a
permanent dead level, that is to be measured.
This farmer who spends an idle day measuring the flow of his brook
with a notched board, may say here: "This is all very well. This is
the spring of the year, when my brook is flowing at high-water mark.
What am I going to do in the dry months of summer, when there are not
250 cubic feet of water escaping every minute?"
There are several answers to this question, which will be taken up in
detail in subsequent chapters. Here, let us say, even if this brook
does flow in sufficient volume only 8 months in a year--the dark
months, by the way,--is not electricity and the many benefits it
provides worth having eight months in the year? My garden provides
fresh vegetables four months a year. Because it withers and dies and
lies covered with snow during the winter, is that any reason why I
should not plow and manure and plant my garden when spring comes
again?
A water wheel, the modern turbine, is a circular fan with curved iron
blades, revolving in an iron case. Water, forced through the blades of
this fan by its own weight, causes the wheel to revolve on its axis;
and the fan, in turn causes a shaft fitted with pulleys to revolve.
The water, by giving the iron-bladed fan a turning movement as it
rushes through, imparts to it mechanical power. The shaft set in
motion by means of this mechanical power is, in turn, belted to the
pulley of a dynamo. This dynamo consists, first, of a shaft on which
is placed a spool, wound in a curious way, with many turns of
insulated copper wire. This spool revolves freely in an air space
surrounded by electric magnets. The spool does not touch these
magnets. It is so nicely balanced that the weight of a finger will
turn it. Yet, when it is revolved by water-power at a predetermined
speed--say 1,500 revolutions a minute--it generates electricity,
transforms the mechanical power of the water wheel into another form
of energy--a form of energy which can be carried for long distances on
copper wires, which can, by touching a button, be itself converted
into light, or heat, or back into mechanical energy again.
If two wires be led from opposite sides of this revolving spool, and
an electric lamp be connected from one to the other wire, the lamp
will be lighted--will grow white hot,--hence _incandescent light_.
The instant this lamp is turned on, the revolving spool feels a
stress, the magnets by which it is surrounded begin to pull back on
it. The power of the water wheel, however, overcomes this pull. If one
hundred lights be turned on, the backward pull of the magnets
surrounding the spool will be one hundred times as strong as for one
light. For every ounce of electrical energy used in light or heat or
power, the dynamo will require a like ounce of mechanical power from
the water wheel which drives it.
The story is told of a canny Scotch engineer, who, in the first days
of dynamos, not so very long ago, scoffed at the suggestion that such
a spool, spinning in free air, in well lubricated bearings, could
bring his big Corliss steam engine to a stop. Yet he saw it done
simply by belting this "spool," a dynamo, to his engine and asking the
dynamo for more power in terms of light than his steam could deliver
in terms of mechanical power to overcome the pull of the magnets.
Electricity must be consumed the instant it is generated (except in
rare instances where small amounts are accumulated in storage
batteries by a chemical process). The pressure of a button, or the
throw of a switch causes the dynamo instantly to respond with just
enough energy to do the work asked of it, always in proportion to the
amount required. Having this in mind, it is rather curious to think of
electricity as being an article of export, an item in international
trade. Yet in 1913 hydro-electric companies in Canada "exported" by
means of wires, to this country over 772,000,000 kilowatt-hours (over
one billion horsepower hours) of electricity for use in factories near
the boundary line.
This 250 cubic feet of water per minute then, which the farmer has
measured by means of his notched board, will transform by means of its
falling weight mechanical power into a like amount of electrical
power--less friction losses, which may amount to as much as 60% in
very small machines, and 15% in larger plants. That is, the brook
which has been draining your pastures for uncounted ages contains the
potential power of 3 and 4 young horses--with this difference: that it
works 24 hours a day, runs on forever, and requires no oats or hay.
And the cost of such an electric plant, which is ample for the needs
of the average farm, _is in most cases less than the price of a good
farm horse_--the $200 kind--not counting labor of installation.
It is the purpose of these chapters to awaken the farmer to the
possibilities of such small water-power as he or his community may
possess; to show that the generating of electricity is a very simple
operation, and that the maintenance and care of such a plant is within
the mechanical ability of any American farmer or farm boy; and to show
that electricity itself is far from being the dangerous death-dealing
"fluid" of popular imagination. Electricity must be studied; and then
it becomes an obedient, tireless servant. During the past decade or
two, mathematical wizards have studied electricity, explored its
atoms, reduced it to simple arithmetic--and although they cannot yet
tell us _why_ it is generated, they tell us _how_. It is with this
simple arithmetic, and the necessary manual operations that we have to
do here.
CHAPTER III
HOW TO MEASURE WATER-POWER
What is a horsepower?--How the Carthaginians manufactured
horsepower--All that goes up must come down--How the sun lifts
water up for us to use--Water the ideal power for generating
electricity--The weir--Table for estimating flow of streams, with a
weir--Another method of measuring--Figuring water horsepower--The
size of the wheel--What head is required--Quantity of water
necessary.
If a man were off in the woods and needed a horsepower of energy to
work for him, he could generate it by lifting 550 pounds of stone or
wood, or whatnot, one foot off the ground, and letting it fall back in
the space of one second. As a man possesses capacity for work equal to
one-fifth horsepower, it would take him five seconds to do the work of
lifting the weight up that the weight itself accomplished in falling
down. All that goes up must come down; and by a nice balance of
physical laws, a falling body hits the ground with precisely the same
force as is required to lift it to the height from which it falls.
The Carthaginians, and other ancients (who were deep in the woods as
regards mechanical knowledge) had their slaves carry huge stones to
the top of the city wall; and the stones were placed in convenient
positions to be tipped over on the heads of any besieging army that
happened along. Thus by concentrating the energy of many slaves in one
batch of stones, the warriors of that day were enabled to deliver
"horsepower" in one mass where it would do the most good. The farmer
who makes use of the energy of falling water to generate electricity
for light, heat, and power does the same thing--he makes use of the
capacity for work stored in water in being lifted to a certain height.
As in the case of the gasoline engine, which burns 14 pounds of air
for every pound of gasoline, the engineer of the water-power plant
does not have to concern himself with the question of how this
natural source of energy happened to be in a handy place for him to
make use of it.
The sun, shining on the ocean, and turning water into vapor by its
heat has already lifted it up for him. This vapor floating in the air
and blown about by winds, becomes chilled from one cause or another,
gives up its heat, turns back into water, and falls as rain. This
rain, falling on land five, ten, a hundred, a thousand, or ten
thousand feet above the sea level, begins to run back to the sea,
picking out the easiest road and cutting a channel that we call a
brook, a stream, or a river. Our farm lands are covered to an average
depth of about three feet a year with water, every gallon of which has
stored in it the energy expended by the heat of the sun in lifting it
to the height where it is found.
The farmer, prospecting on his land for water-power, locates a spot on
a stream which he calls Supply; and another spot a few feet down hill
near the same stream, which he calls Power. Every gallon of water that
falls between these two points, and is made to escape through the
revolving blades of a water wheel is capable of work in terms of
foot-pounds--an amount of work that is directly proportional to the
_quantity_ of water, and to the _distance_ in feet which it falls to
reach the wheel--_pounds_ and _feet_.
_The Efficient Water Wheel_
And it is a very efficient form of work, too. In fact it is one of the
most efficient forms of mechanical energy known--and one of the
easiest controlled. A modern water wheel uses 85 per cent of the total
capacity for work imparted to falling water by gravity, and delivers
it as rotary motion. Compare this water wheel efficiency with other
forms of mechanical power in common use: Whereas a water wheel uses 85
per cent of the energy of its water supply, and wastes only 15 per
cent, a gasoline engine reverses the table, and delivers only 15 per
cent of the energy in gasoline and wastes 85 per cent--and it is
rather a high-class gasoline engine that can deliver even 15 per cent;
a steam engine, on the other hand, uses about 17 per cent of the
energy in the coal under its boilers and passes the rest up the
chimney as waste heat and smoke.
There is still another advantage possessed by water-power over its two
rivals, steam and gas: It gives the most even flow of power. A gas
engine "kicks" a wheel round in a circle, by means of successive
explosions in its cylinders. A reciprocating steam engine "kicks" a
wheel round in a circle by means of steam expanding first in one
direction, then in another. A water wheel, on the other hand, is made
to revolve by means of the pressure of water--by the constant force of
gravity, itself--weight. Weight is something that does not vary from
minute to minute, or from one fraction of a second to another. It is
always the same. A square inch of water pressing on the blades of a
water wheel weights ten, twenty, a hundred pounds, according to the
height of the pipe conveying that water from the source of supply, to
the wheel. So long as this column of water is maintained at a fixed
height, the power it delivers to the wheel does not vary by so much as
the weight of a feather.
This property of falling water makes it the ideal power for generating
electricity. Electricity generated from mechanical power depends on
constant speed for steady pressure--since the electric current, when
analyzed, is merely a succession of pulsations through a wire, like
waves beating against a sea wall. Water-power delivers these waves at
a constant speed, so that electric lights made from water-power do not
flicker and jump like the flame of a lantern in a gusty wind. On the
other hand, to accomplish the same thing with steam or gasoline
requires an especially constructed engine.
_The Simple Weir_
Since a steady flow of water, and a constant head, bring about this
ideal condition in the water wheel, the first problem that faces the
farmer prospector is to determine the amount of water which his stream
is capable of delivering. This is always measured, for convenience,
in _cubic feet per minute_. (A cubic foot of water weighs 62.5 pounds,
and contains 7-1/2 gallons.) This measurement is obtained in several
ways, among which probably the use of a weir is the simplest and most
accurate, for small streams.
A weir is, in effect, merely a temporary dam set across the stream in
such a manner as to form a small pond; and to enable one to measure
the water escaping from this pond.
It may be likened to the overflow pipe of a horse trough which is
being fed from a spring. To measure the flow of water from such a
spring, all that is necessary is to measure the water escaping through
the overflow when the water in the trough has attained a permanent
level.
[Illustration: Detail of home-made weir]
[Illustration: Cross-section of weir]
The diagrams show the cross-section and detail of a typical weir,
which can be put together in a few minutes with the aid of a saw and
hammer. The cross-section shows that the lower edge of the slot
through which the water of the temporary pond is made to escape, is
cut on a bevel, with its sharp edge upstream. The wing on each side of
the opening is for the purpose of preventing the stream from narrowing
as it flows through the opening, and thus upsetting the calculations.
This weir should be set directly across the flow of the stream,
perfectly level, and upright. It should be so imbedded in the banks,
and in the bottom of the stream, that no water can escape, except
through the opening cut for that purpose. It will require a little
experimenting with a rough model to determine just how wide and how
deep this opening should be. It should be large enough to prevent
water flowing over the top of the board; and it should be small
enough to cause a still-water pond to form for several feet behind the
weir. Keep in mind the idea of the overflowing water trough when
building your weir. The stream, running down from a higher level
behind, should be emptying into a still-water pond, which in turn
should be emptying itself through the aperture in the board at the
same rate as the stream is keeping the pond full.
Your weir should be fashioned with the idea of some permanency so that
a number of measurements may be taken, extending over a period of
time--thus enabling the prospector to make a reliable estimate not
only of the amount of water flowing at any one time, but of its
fluctuations.
Under expert supervision, this simple weir is an exact
contrivance--exact enough, in fact, for the finest calculations
required in engineering work. To find out how many cubic feet of water
the stream is delivering at any moment, all that is necessary is to
measure its depth where it flows through the opening. There are
instruments, like the hook-gauge, which are designed to measure this
depth with accuracy up to one-thousandth of an inch. An ordinary foot
rule, or a folding rule, will give results sufficiently accurate for
the water prospector in this instance. The depth should be measured
not at the opening itself, but a short distance back of the opening,
where the water is setting at a dead level and is moving very slowly.
With this weir, every square inch of water flowing through the opening
indicates roughly one cubic foot of water a minute. Thus if the
opening is 10 inches wide and the water flowing through it is 5 inches
deep, the number of cubic feet a minute the stream is delivering is 10
× 5 = 50 square inches = 50 cubic feet a minute. This is a very small
stream; yet, if it could be made to fall through a water wheel 10 feet
below a pond or reservoir, it would exert a continuous pressure of
30,000 pounds per minute on the blades of the wheel--nearly one
theoretical horsepower.
This estimate of one cubic foot to each square inch is a very rough
approximation. Engineers have developed many complicated formulas for
determining the flow of water through weirs, taking into account fine
variations that the farm prospector need not heed. The so-called
Francis formula, developed by a long series of actual experiments at
Lowell, Mass., in 1852 by Mr. James B. Francis, with weirs 10 feet
long and 5 feet 2 inches high, is standard for these calculations and
is expressed (for those who desire to use it for special purposes) as
follows:
Q = 3.33 L H^(3/2) or, Q = 3.33 L H sqrt(H),
in which Q means _quantity_ of water in cubic feet per second, L is
length of opening, in feet; and H is height of opening in feet.
The following table is figured according to the Francis formula, and
gives the discharge in cubic feet per minute, for openings one inch
wide:
TABLE OF WEIRS
Inches 0 1/4 1/2 3/4
1 0.403 0.563 0.740 0.966
2 1.141 1.360 1.593 1.838
3 2.094 2.361 2.639 2.927
4 3.225 3.531 3.848 4.173
5 4.506 4.849 5.200 5.558
6 5.925 6.298 6.681 7.071
7 7.465 7.869 8.280 8.697
8 9.121 9.552 9.990 10.427
9 10.884 11.340 11.804 12.272
10 12.747 13.228 13.716 14.208
11 14.707 15.211 15.721 16.236
12 16.757 17.283 17.816 18.352
13 18.895 19.445 19.996 20.558
14 21.116 21.684 22.258 22.835
15 23.418 24.007 24.600 25.195
16 25.800 26.406 27.019 27.634
17 28.256 28.881 29.512 30.145
18 30.785 31.429 32.075 32.733
Thus, let us say, our weir has an opening 30 inches wide, and the
water overflows through the opening at a uniform depth of 6-1/4
inches, when measured a few inches behind the board at a point before
the overflow curve begins. Run down the first column on the left to
"6", and cross over to the second column to the right, headed "1/4".
This gives the number of cubic feet per minute for this depth one inch
wide, as 6.298. Since the weir is 30 inches wide, multiply 6.298 × 30
= 188.94--or, say, 189 cubic feet per minute.
Once the weir is set, it is the work of but a moment to find out the
quantity of water a stream is delivering, simply by referring to the
above table.
_Another Method of Measuring a Stream_
Weirs are for use in small streams. For larger streams, where the
construction of a weir would be difficult, the U. S. Geological Survey
engineers recommend the following simple method:
Choose a place where the channel is straight for 100 or 200 feet, and
has a nearly constant depth and width; lay off on the bank a line 50
or 100 feet in length. Throw small chips into the stream, and measure
the time in seconds they take to travel the distance laid off on the
bank. This gives the surface velocity of the water. Multiply the
average of several such tests by 0.80, which will give very nearly the
mean velocity. Then it is necessary to find the cross-section of the
flowing water (its average depth multiplied by width), and this
number, in square feet, multiplied by the velocity in feet per second,
will give the number of cubic feet the stream is delivering each
second. Multiplied by 60 gives cubic feet a minute.
_Figuring a Stream's Horsepower_
By one of the above simple methods, the problem of _Quantity_ can
easily be determined. The next problem is to determine what _Head_ can
be obtained. _Head_ is the distance in feet the water may be made to
fall, from the Source of Supply, to the water wheel itself. The power
of water is directly proportional to _head_, just as it is directly
proportional to _quantity_. Thus the typical weir measured above was
30 inches wide and 6-1/4 deep, giving 189 cubic feet of water a
minute--_Quantity._ Since such a stream is of common occurrence on
thousands of farms, let us analyze briefly its possibilities for
power: One hundred and eighty-nine cubic feet of water weighs 189 ×
62.5 pounds = 11,812.5 pounds. Drop this weight one foot, and we have
11,812.5 foot-pounds. Drop it 3 feet and we have 11,812 × 3 =
35,437.5 foot-pounds. Since 33,000 foot-pounds exerted in one minute
is one horsepower, we have here a little more than one horsepower. For
simplicity let us call it a horsepower.
[Illustration: Detail of a water-power plant, showing setting of
wheel, and dynamo connection]
Now, since the work to be had from this water varies directly with
_quantity_ and _head_, it is obvious that a stream _one-half_ as big
falling _twice_ as far, would still give one horsepower at the wheel;
or, a stream of 189 cubic feet a minute falling _ten times_ as far, 30
feet, would give _ten times_ the power, or _ten_ horsepower; a stream
falling _one hundred times_ as far would give _one hundred_
horsepower. Thus small quantities of water falling great distances, or
large quantities of water falling small distances may accomplish the
same results. From this it will be seen, that the simple formula for
determining the theoretical horsepower of any stream, in which
Quantity and Head are known, is as follows:
Cu. Ft.
per Feet
minute × head × 62.5
(A) Theoretical Horsepower = ----------------------
33,000
_As an example, let us say that we have a stream whose weir
measurement shows it capable of delivering 376 cubic feet a minute,
with a head (determined by survey) of 13 feet 6 inches. What is the
horsepower of this stream?_
Answer:
Cu. ft. p. m. head pounds
376 × 13.5 × 62.5
H.P. = ----------------------------- = 9.614 horsepower
33,000
This is _theoretical horsepower_. To determine the _actual_ horsepower
that can be counted on, in practice, it is customary, with small water
wheels, to figure 25 per cent loss through friction, etc. In this
instance, the actual horsepower would then be 7.2.
_The Size of the Wheel_
Water wheels are not rated by horsepower by manufacturers, because the
same wheel might develop one horsepower or one hundred horsepower, or
even a thousand horsepower, according to the conditions under which
it is used. With a given supply of water, the head, in feet,
determines the size of wheel necessary. The farther a stream of water
falls, the smaller the pipe necessary to carry a given number of
gallons past a given point in a given time.
A small wheel, under 10 × 13.5 ft. head, would give the same power
with the above 376 cubic feet of water a minute, as a large wheel
would with 10 × 376 cubic feet, under a 13.5 foot head.
This is due to the _acceleration of gravity_ on falling bodies. A
rifle bullet shot into the air with a muzzle velocity of 3,000 feet a
second begins to diminish its speed instantly on leaving the muzzle,
and continues to diminish in speed at the fixed rate of 32.16 feet a
second, until it finally comes to a stop, and starts to descend. Then,
again, its speed accelerates at the rate of 32.16 feet a second, until
on striking the earth it has attained the velocity at which it left
the muzzle of the rifle, less loss due to friction.
The acceleration of gravity affects falling water in the same manner
as it affects a falling bullet. At any one second, during its course
of fall, it is traveling at a rate 32.16 feet a second in excess of
its speed the previous second.
In figuring the size wheel necessary under given conditions or to
determine the power of water with a given nozzle opening, it is
necessary to take this into account. The table on page 51 gives
velocity per second of falling water, ignoring the friction of the
pipe, in heads from 5 to 1000 feet.
The scientific formula from which the table is computed is expressed
as follows, for those of a mathematical turn of mind:
Velocity (ft. per sec.) = sqrt(2gh); or, velocity is equal to the
square root of the product (g = 32.16,--times head in feet, multiplied
by 2).
SPOUTING VELOCITY OF WATER, IN FEET PER SECOND, IN HEADS
OF FROM 5 TO 1,000 FEET
Head Velocity
5 17.9
6 19.7
7 21.2
8 22.7
9 24.1
10 25.4
11 26.6
11.5 27.2
12 27.8
12.5 28.4
13 28.9
13.5 29.5
14 30.0
14.5 30.5
15 31.3
15.5 31.6
16 32.1
16.5 32.6
17 33.1
17.5 33.6
18 34.0
18.5 34.5
19 35.0
19.5 35.4
20 35.9
20.5 36.3
21 36.8
21.5 37.2
22 37.6
22.5 38.1
23 38.5
23.5 38.9
24 39.3
24.5 39.7
25 40.1
26 40.9
27 41.7
28 42.5
29 43.2
30 43.9
31 44.7
32 45.4
33 46.1
34 46.7
35 47.4
36 48.1
37 48.8
38 49.5
39 50.1
40 50.7
41 51.3
42 52.0
43 52.6
44 53.2
45 53.8
46 54.4
47 55.0
48 55.6
49 56.2
50 56.7
55 59.5
60 62.1
65 64.7
70 67.1
75 69.5
80 71.8
85 74.0
90 76.1
95 78.2
100 80.3
200 114.0
300 139.0
400 160.0
500 179.0
1000 254.0
_In the above example, we found that 376 cubic feet of water a minute,
under 13.5 feet head, would deliver 7.2 actual horsepower. Question:
What size wheel would it be necessary to install under such
conditions?_
By referring to the table of velocity above, (or by using the
formula), we find that water under a head of 13.5 feet, has a spouting
velocity of 29.5 feet a second. This means that a solid stream of
water 29.5 feet long would pass through the wheel in one second. _What
should be the diameter of such a stream, to make its cubical contents
376 cubic feet a minute or 376/60 = 6.27 cubic feet a second?_ The
following formula should be used to determine this:
144 × cu. ft. per second
(B) Sq. Inches of wheel = --------------------------
Velocity in ft. per sec.
Substituting values, in the above instance, we have:
Answer: Sq. Inches of wheel =
144 × 6.27 (Cu. Ft. Sec.)
--------------------------- = 30.6 sq. in.
29.5 (Vel. in feet.)
That is, a wheel capable of using 30.6 square inches of water would
meet these conditions.
_What Head is Required_
Let us attack the problem of water-power in another way. _A farmer
wishes to install a water wheel that will deliver 10 horsepower on the
shaft, and he finds his stream delivers 400 cubic feet of water a
minute. How many feet fall is required?_ Formula:
33,000 × horsepower required
(C) Head in feet = ------------------------------
Cu. Ft. per minute × 62.5
Since a theoretical horsepower is only 75 per cent efficient, he would
require 10 × 4/3 = 13.33 theoretical horsepower of water, in this
instance. Substituting the values of the problem in the formula, we
have:
33,000 × 13.33
Answer: Head = ---------------- = 17.6 feet fall required.
400 × 62.5
_What capacity of wheel would this prospect (400 cubic feet of water a
minute falling 17.6 feet, and developing 13.33 horsepower) require?_
By referring to the table of velocities, we find that the velocity for
17.5 feet head (nearly) is 33.6 feet a second. Four hundred feet of
water a minute is 400/60 = 6.67 cu. ft. a second. Substituting these
values, in formula (B) then, we have:
Answer: Capacity of wheel =
144 × 6.67
---------- = 28.6 square inches of water.
33.6
_Quantity of Water_
Let us take still another problem which the prospector may be called
on to solve: _A man finds that he can conveniently get a fall of 27
feet. He desires 20 actual horsepower. What quantity of water will be
necessary, and what capacity wheel?_
Twenty actual horsepower will be 20 × 4/3 = 26.67 theoretical
horsepower. Formula:
33,000 × Hp. required
(D) Cubic feet per minute = ---------------------
(Head in feet × 62.5)
Substituting values, then, we have:
Cu. ft. per minute =
33,000 × 26.67
-------------- = 521.5 cubic feet a minute.
27 × 62.5
A head of 27 feet would give this stream a velocity of 41.7 feet a
second, and, from formula (B) we find that the capacity of the wheel
should be 30 square inches.
It is well to remember that the square inches of wheel capacity does
not refer to the size of pipe conveying water from the head to the
wheel, but merely to the actual nozzle capacity provided by the wheel
itself. In small installations of low head, such as above a penstock
at least six times the nozzle capacity should be used, to avoid losing
effective head from friction. Thus, with a nozzle of 30 square inches,
the penstock or pipe should be 180 square inches, or nearly 14 inches
square inside measurement. A larger penstock would be still better.
CHAPTER IV
THE WATER WHEEL AND HOW TO INSTALL IT
Different types of water wheels--The impulse and reaction
wheels--The impulse wheel adapted to high heads and small amount of
water--Pipe lines--Table of resistance in pipes--Advantages and
disadvantages of the impulse wheel--Other forms of impulse
wheels--The reaction turbine, suited to low heads and large
quantity of water--Its advantages and limitations--Developing a
water-power project: the dam; the race; the flume; the penstock;
and the tailrace--Water rights for the farmer.
In general, there are two types of water wheels, the _impulse_ wheel
and the _reaction_ wheel. Both are called turbines, although the name
belongs, more properly, to the reaction wheel alone.
Impulse wheels derive their power from the _momentum_ of falling
water. Reaction wheels derive their power from the _momentum and
pressure_ of falling water. The old-fashioned _undershot_, _overshot_,
and _breast_ wheels are familiar to all as examples of impulse
wheels. Water wheels of this class revolve in the air, with the energy
of the water exerted on one face of their buckets. On the other hand,
reaction wheels are enclosed in water-tight cases, either of metal or
of wood, and the buckets are entirely surrounded by water.
The old-fashioned undershot, overshot, and breast wheels were not very
efficient; they wasted about 75 per cent of the power applied to them.
A modern impulse wheel, on the other hand, operates at an efficiency
of 80 per cent and over. The loss is mainly through friction and
leakage, and cannot be eliminated altogether. The modern reaction
wheel, called the _turbine_, attains an equal efficiency. Individual
conditions govern the type of wheel to be selected.
_The Impulse, or Tangential Water Wheel_
The modern impulse, or tangential wheel (so called because the driving
stream of water strikes the wheel at a tangent) is best adapted to
situations where the amount of water is limited, and the head is
large. Thus, a mountain brook supplying only seven cubic feet of water
a minute--a stream less than two-and-a-half inches deep flowing over a
weir with an opening three inches wide--would develop two actual
horsepower, under a head of 200 feet--not an unusual head to be found
in the hill country. Under a head of one thousand feet, a stream
furnishing 352.6 cubic feet of water a minute would develop 534.01
horsepower at the nozzle.
Ordinarily these wheels are not used under heads of less than 20 feet.
A wheel of this type, six feet in diameter, would develop six
horsepower, with 188 cubic feet of water a minute and 20-foot head.
The great majority of impulse wheels are used under heads of 100 feet
and over. In this country the greatest head in use is slightly over
2,100 feet, although in Switzerland there is one plant utilizing a
head of over 5,000 feet.
[Illustration: Runner of Pelton wheel, showing peculiar shape of the
buckets]
[Illustration: The Fitz overshoot wheel
Efficient Modern Adaptations of the Archaic Undershot and Overshot
Water Wheels]
The old-fashioned impulse wheels were inefficient because of the fact
that their buckets were not constructed scientifically, and much of
the force of the water was lost at the moment of impact. The impulse
wheel of to-day, however, has buckets which so completely absorb the
momentum of water issuing from a nozzle, that the water falls into the
tailrace with practically no velocity. When it is remembered that the
nozzle pressure under a 2,250-foot head is nearly 1,000 pounds to the
square inch, and that water issues from this nozzle with a velocity of
23,000 feet a minute, the scientific precision of this type of bucket
can be appreciated.
A typical bucket for such a wheel is shaped like an open clam shell,
the central line which cuts the stream of water into halves being
ground to a sharp edge. The curves which absorb the momentum of the
water are figured mathematically and in practice become polished like
mirrors. So great is the eroding action of water, under great
heads--especially when it contains sand or silt--that it is
occasionally necessary to replace these buckets. For this reason the
larger wheels consist merely of a spider of iron or steel, with each
bucket bolted separately to its circumference, so that it can be
removed and replaced easily. Usually only one nozzle is provided; but
in order to use this wheel under low heads--down to 10 feet--a number
of nozzles are used, sometimes five, where the water supply is
plentiful.
The wheel is keyed to a horizontal shaft running in babbited bearings,
and this same shaft is used for driving the generator, either by
direct connection, or by means of pulleys and a belt. The wheel may be
mounted on a home-made timber base, or on an iron frame. It takes up
very little room, especially when it is so set that the nozzle can be
mounted under the flooring. The wheel itself is enclosed, above the
floor, in a wooden box, or a casing made of cast or sheet iron, which
should be water-tight.
Since these wheels are usually operated under great heads, the problem
of regulating their water supply requires special consideration. A
gate is always provided at the upper, or intake end, where the water
pipe leaves the flume. Since the pressure reaches 1,000 pounds the
square inch and more, there would be danger of bursting the pipe if
the water were suddenly shut off at the nozzle itself. For this reason
it is necessary to use a needle valve, similar to that in an ordinary
garden hose nozzle; and by such a valve the amount of water may be
regulated to a nicety. Where the head is so great that even such a
valve could not be used safely, provision is made to deflect the
nozzle. These wheels have a speed variation amounting to as much as 25
per cent from no-load to full load, in generating electricity, and
since the speed of the prime mover--the water wheel--is reflected
directly in the voltage or pressure of electricity delivered, the
wheel must be provided with some form of automatic governor. This
consists usually of two centrifugal balls, similar to those used in
governing steam engines; these are connected by means of gears to the
needle valve or the deflector.
As the demand for farm water-powers in our hill sections becomes more
general, the tangential type of water wheel will come into common use
for small plants. At present it is most familiar in the great
commercial installations of the Far West, working under enormous
heads. These wheels are to be had in the market ranging in size from
six inches to six feet and over. Wheels ranging in size from six
inches to twenty-four inches are called water motors, and are to be
had in the market, new, for $30 for the smallest size, and $275 for
the largest. Above three feet in diameter, the list prices will run
from $200 for a 3-foot wheel to $800 for a 6-foot wheel. Where one has
a surplus of water, it is possible to install a multiple nozzle wheel,
under heads of from 10 to 100 feet, the cost for 18-inch wheels of
this pattern running from $150 to $180 list, and for 24-inch wheels
from $200 to $250. A 24-inch wheel, with a 10-foot head would give
1.19 horsepower, enough for lighting the home, and using an electric
iron. Under a 100-foot head this same wheel would provide 25.9
horsepower, to meet the requirements of a bigger-than-average farm
plant.
_The Pipe Line_
The principal items of cost in installing an impulse wheel are in
connection with the pipe line, and the governor. In small heads, that
is, under 100 feet, the expense of pipe line is low. Frequently,
however, the governor will cost more than the water motor itself,
although cheaper, yet efficient, makes are now being put on the market
to meet this objection. In a later chapter, we will take up in detail
the question of governing the water wheel, and voltage regulation, and
will attempt to show how this expense may be practically eliminated by
the farmer.
To secure large heads, it is usually necessary to run a pipe line many
hundreds (and in many cases, many thousands) of feet from the flume to
the water wheel. Water flowing through pipes is subject to loss of
head, by friction, and for this reason the larger the pipe the less
the friction loss. Under no circumstances is it recommended to use a
pipe of less than two inches in diameter, even for the smallest water
motors; and with a two-inch pipe, the run should not exceed 200 feet.
Where heavy-pressure mains, such as those of municipal or commercial
water systems, are available, the problem of both water supply and
head becomes very simple. Merely ascertain the pressure of the water
in the mains _when flowing_, determine the amount of power required
(as illustrated in a succeeding chapter of this book), and install the
proper water motor with a suitably sized pipe.
Where one has his own water supply, however, and it is necessary to
lay pipe to secure the requisite fall, the problem is more difficult.
Friction in pipes acts in the same way as cutting down the head a
proportional amount; and by cutting down the head, your water motor
loses power in direct proportion to the number of feet head lost. This
head, obtained by subtracting friction and other losses from the
surveyed head, is called the _effective head_, and determines the
amount of power delivered at the nozzle.
The tables on pages 66-67 show the friction loss in pipes up to 12
inches in diameter, according to the amount of water, and the length
of pipe.
In this example it is seen that a 240-foot static head is reduced by
friction to 230.1 feet effective head. By referring to the table we
find the wheel fitting these conditions has a nozzle so small that it
cuts down the rate of flow of water in the big pipe to 4.4 feet a
second, and permits the flow of only 207 cubic feet of water a minute.
The actual horsepower of this tube and nozzle, then, can be figured by
applying formula (A), Chapter III, allowing 80 per cent for the
efficiency of the wheel. Thus:
Actual horsepower =
207 × 230.1 × 62.5
------------------ = 90.21 × .80 = 72.168 Hp.
33,000
To calculate what the horsepower of this tube 12 inches in diameter
and 900 feet long, would be without a nozzle, under a head of 240
feet, introduces a new element of friction losses, which is too
complicated to figure here. Such a condition would not be met with in
actual practice, in any event. The largest nozzles used, even in the
jumbo plants of the Far West, rarely exceed 10 inches in diameter; and
the pipe conveying water to such a nozzle is upwards of eight feet in
diameter.
PIPE FRICTION TABLES
INDICATING THE CALCULATED LOSS OF HEAD DUE TO FRICTION IN RIVETED
STEEL PIPE WITH VARIOUS WATER QUANTITIES AND VELOCITIES
[Courtesy of the Pelton Water Wheel Company]
Heavy-faced figures = Loss of head in feet for each one thousand
feet of pipe. Light-faced figures = Water quantity in cubic feet per
minute.
--------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Pipe | Velocity in Feet per Second |
Diameter+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-------+
| 2.0 | 2.2 | 2.4 | 2.6 | 2.8 | 3.0 | 3.2 | 3.4 | 3.6 | 3.8 | 4.0 | 4.2 | 4.4 |
--------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-------+
|=17.1=|=20.0=|=25.6=|=28.3=|=32.0=|=37.3=|=40.9=|=45.8=|=50.4=|=56.0=|=62.3=|=68.1=|=74.9= |
3" | 5.9 | 6.5 | 7.1 | 7.7 | 8.3 | 8.9 | 9.4 | 10.0 | 10.6 | 11.2 | 11.8 | 12.4 | 13.0 |
|=11.0=|=13.0=|=15.0=|=17.3=|=20.2=|=23.2=|=26.2=|=29.6=|=33.0=|=36.5=|=41.0=|=45.4=|=49.2= |
4" | 10.5 | 11.5 | 12.6 | 13.6 | 14.7 | 15.7 | 16.8 | 17.8 | 18.8 | 19.9 | 21.0 | 22.0 | 23.0 |
| =7.7=| =9.4=|=11.0=|=12.9=|=14.9=|=16.9=|=19.5=|=21.6=|=24.0=|=27.0=|=29.8=|=32.9=|=36.0= |
5" | 16.4 | 18.0 | 19.6 | 21.2 | 22.9 | 24.5 | 26.1 | 27.8 | 29.5 | 31.0 | 32.7 | 34.3 | 36.0 |
| =6.0=| =7.2=| =8.6=| =9.9=|=11.7=|=13.0=|=14.6=|=16.6=|=19.0=|=21.5=|=23.4=|=25.5=|=27.8= |
6" | 23.5 | 25.9 | 28.2 | 30.6 | 32.9 | 35.3 | 37.7 | 40.0 | 42.4 | 44.7 | 47.1 | 49.5 | 51.8 |
| =4.9 | =6.9=| =7.0=| =8.1=| =9.3=|=10.6=|=12.0=|=13.6=|=15.2=|=17.0=|=19.0=|=21.0=|=23.0= |
7" | 32.0 | 35.3 | 38.5 | 41.7 | 44.9 | 48.1 | 51.3 | 54.5 | 57.7 | 60.9 | 64.1 | 67.3 | 70.5 |
| =4.0=| =4.9=| =6.0=| =6.9=| =7.8=| =9.1=|=10.0=|=10.2=|=13.0=|=14.4=|=15.9=|=17.2=|=19.2= |
8" | 41.9 | 46.1 | 50.2 | 54.4 | 58.6 | 62.8 | 67.0 | 71.2 | 75.4 | 79.6 | 83.7 | 87.9 | 92.1 |
| =3.4=| =4.2=| =5.1=| =5.9=| =6.7=| =7.7=| =8.9=| =9.8=|=11.0=|=12.2=|=13.8=|=15.0=|=16.0= |
9" | 53.0 | 58.3 | 63.6 | 68.9 | 74.2 | 79.5 | 84.8 | 90.1 | 95.4 |101 |106 |111 |116 |
| =2.9=| =3.7=| =4.4=| =5.1=| =5.9=| =6.7=| =7.5=| =8.6=| =9.5=|=10.6=|=12.1=|=13.1=|=14.1= |
10" | 65.4 | 72.0 | 78.5 | 85.1 | 91.6 | 98.2 |105 |111 |118 |124 |131 |137 |144 |
| =2.6=| =3.2=| =3.8=| =4.4=| =5.1=| =5.9=| =6.6=| =7.5=| =8.4=| =9.5=|=10.3=|=10.1=|=12.5= |
11" | 79 | 87 | 95 |103 |111 |119 |127 |134 |142 |150 |158 |166 |174 |
|=2.36=| =2.9=| =3.4=| =3.9=| =4.5=| =5.2=| =5.9=| =6.7=| =7.5=| =8.5=| =9.4=|=10.0=|=11.0= |
12" |94 |103 |113 |122 |132 |141 |151 |160 |169 |179 |188 |198 |207 |
--------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-------+
--------+------+------+------+------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| 4.6 | 4.8 | 5.0 | 5.2 | 5.4 | 5.6 | 5.8 | 6.0 | 7.0 | 8.0 | 9.0 | 10.0 |
--------+------+------+------+------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
|=78.1=|=82.0=|=89.5=|=98.9=|=105.0=|=113.2=|=120.8=|=130.0=|=162.8=|=216.0=|=270.= |=323.= |
3" | 13.6 | 14.2 | 14.8 | 15.3 | 15.9 | 16.5 | 17.1 | 17.7 | 20.6 | 23.5 | 26.5 | 29.5 |
|=52.3=|=57.0=|=61.5=|=68.0=| =72.5=| =78.2=| =83.1=| =89.5=|=121.= |=155.= |=198.= |=242.= |
4" | 24.1 | 25.1 | 26.2 | 27.2 | 28.3 | 29.3 | 30.4 | 31.5 | 36.6 | 41.9 | 47.2 | 52.4 |
|=39.2=|=42.3=|=46.0=|=49.8=| =53.5=| =58.0=| =62.0=| =67.0=| =89.= |=118.= |=148.= |=182.= |
5" | 37.6 | 39.2 | 40.9 | 42.5 | 44.1 | 45.8 | 47.5 | 49.1 | 57.1 | 65.4 | 73.7 | 82.0 |
|=30.6=|=33.1=|=35.6=|=39.0=| =41.6=| =44.6=| =48.0=| =51.6=| =69.0=| =89.0=|=114.= |=140.= |
6" | 54.1 | 56.5 | 58.9 | 61.2 | 63.6 | 65.9 | 68.3 | 70.7 | 82.4 | 94.3 | 106 | 118 |
|=25.1=|=27.3=|=29.5=|=32.0=| =34.5=| =37.1=| =40.0=| =43.0=| =58.0=| =75.0=| =95.0=|=116.= |
7" | 73.7 | 76.9 | 80.2 | 83.3 | 86.6 | 89.8 | 93.0 | 96.2 | 112 | 128 | 145 | 161 |
|=20.0=|=22.5=|=24.9=|=27.0=| =28.8=| =30.6=| =32.8=| =35.5=| =47.5=| =61.2=| =78.6=| =95.1=|
8" | 96.3 |101 |105 |109 | 113 | 117 | 121 | 125 | 146 | 168 | 189 | 210 |
|=17.1=|=19.2=|=21.0=|=22.9=| =24.6=| =26.2=| =28.0=| =30.1=| =40.1=| =52.1=| =66.6=| =82.0=|
9" |122 |127 |132 |138 | 143 | 148 | 154 | 159 | 185 | 212 | 238 | 265 |
|=14.8=|=16.7=|=17.9=|=19.9=| =21.0=| =22.7=| =24.3=| =25.9=| =34.8=| =45.9=| =58.0=| =70.1=|
10" |150 |157 |163 |170 | 177 | 183 | 190 | 196 | 229 | 261 | 295 | 327 |
|=13.0=|=14.7=|=15.9=|=17.1=| =18.2=| =20.1=| =21.3=| =22.6=| =30.7=| =40.0=| =50.8=| =62.0=|
11" |182 |190 |198 |206 | 214 | 222 | 229 | 237 | 277 | 316 | 356 | 396 |
|=11.6=|=13.0=|=14.0=|=15.1=| =16.1=| =17.8=| =19.1=| =20.2=| =27.1=| =35.9=| =45.4=| =55.9=|
12" |217 |226 |235 |245 | 254 | 264 | 273 | 283 | 330 | 377 | 425 | 472 |
--------+---------+----------+------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
EXAMPLE
Assume the surveyed head as 240 feet, the water quantity as 207
cubic feet per minute and a pipe line 12 inches in diameter 900 feet
long. To ascertain the friction loss, refer to column of pipe
diameter and follow across the column for 12 inches diameter to the
quantity, 207 cubic feet per minute. The heavy-faced figures above
207 indicate that the loss per 1000 feet of pipe length is 11 feet.
Therefore, since the pipe in the example is 900 feet long, the loss
will be
11.' × 900/1000 or 9.9 feet, and the effective head will be
240' - 9.9' = 230.1'
Steel tubing for supply pipes, from 3 to 12 inches in diameter is
listed at from 20 cents to $1.50 a foot, according to the diameter and
thickness of the material. Discounts on these prices will vary from 25
to 50 per cent. The farmer can cut down the cost of this pipe by
conveying his supply water from its natural source to a pond, by means
of an open race, or a wooden flume. An ingenious mechanic can even
construct his own pipe out of wood, though figuring labor and
materials, it is doubtful if anything would be saved over a riveted
steel pipe, purchased at the regular price. This pipe, leading from
the pond, or forebay, to the water wheel, should be kept as short as
possible; at the same time, the fall should not be too sharp. An angle
of 30° will be found very satisfactory, although pipe is frequently
laid at angles up to 50°.
_Other Types of Impulse Wheels_
In recent years more efficient forms of the old-fashioned overshoot,
pitch-back breast, and undershoot wheels have been developed, by
substituting steel or other metal for wood, and altering the shape of
the buckets to make better use of the power of falling water.
In some forms of overshoot wheels, an efficiency of over 90 per cent
is claimed by manufacturers; and this type offers the additional
advantage of utilizing small quantities of water, as well as being
efficient under varying quantities of water. They utilize the falling
weight of water, although by giving the water momentum at the point of
delivery, by means of the proper fall, impulse too is utilized in some
measure. The modern steel overshoot wheel receives water in its
buckets from a spout set a few degrees back of dead center; and its
buckets are so shaped that the water is retained a full
half-revolution of the wheel. The old-style overshoot wheel was
inefficient principally because the buckets began emptying themselves
at the end of a quarter-revolution. Another advantage claimed for
these wheels over the old style is that, being made of thin metal,
their buckets attain the temperature of the water itself, thus
reducing the danger of freezing to a minimum. They are manufactured in
sizes from 6 feet in diameter to upwards of fifty feet; and with
buckets of from 6 inches to 10 feet in width. In practice it is usual
to deliver water to the buckets by means of a trough or pipe, through
a suitable spout and gate, at a point two feet above the crown of the
wheel. For this reason, the diameter of the wheel corresponds very
closely to the head in feet.
_The Reaction Turbine_
The reaction turbine is best adapted to low heads, with a large supply
of water. It is not advisable, under ordinary circumstances, to use it
under heads exceeding 100 feet, as its speed is then excessive. It
may be used under falls as low as two feet. Five thousand cubic feet
of water a minute would give approximately 14 actual horsepower under
such a head. A sluggish creek that flows in large volume could thus be
utilized for power with the reaction turbine, whereas it would be
useless with an impulse wheel. Falls of from five to fifteen feet are
to be found on thousands of farm streams, and the reaction turbine is
admirably adapted to them.
Reaction turbines consist of an iron "runner" which is in effect a
rotary fan, the pressure and momentum of the column of water pressing
on the slanted blades giving it motion and power. These wheels are
manufactured in a great variety of forms and sizes; and are to be
purchased either as the runner (set in bearings) alone, or as a runner
enclosed in an iron case. In case the runner alone is purchased, the
owner must enclose it, either with iron or wood. They vary in price
according to size, and the means by which the flow of water is
controlled. A simple 12-inch reaction turbine wheel, such as would be
suitable for many power plants can be had for $75. A twelve-inch
wheel, using 18 or 20 square inches of water, would generate about
7-1/2 horsepower under a 20-foot head, with 268 cubic feet of water a
minute. Under a 30-foot head, and with 330 cubic feet of water such a
wheel will give 14 horsepower. A 36-inch wheel, under a 5-foot head,
would use 2,000 cubic feet of water, and give 14 horsepower. Under a
30-foot head, this same wheel, using 4,900 cubic feet of water a
minute, would develop over 200 horsepower. If the farmer is confronted
by the situation of a great deal of water and small head, a large
wheel would be necessary. Thus he could secure 35 horsepower with only
a 3-foot head, providing his water supply is equal to the draft of
8,300 cubic feet a minute.
From these sample figures, it will be seen that the reaction turbine
will meet the requirements of widely varying conditions up to, say a
head of 100 feet. The farmer prospector should measure first the
quantity of water to be depended on, and then the number of feet fall
to be had. The higher the fall, with certain limits, the smaller the
expense of installation, and the less water required. When he has
determined _quantity_ and _head_, the catalogue of a reputable
manufacturer will supply him with what information is necessary to
decide on the style and size wheel he should install. In the older
settled communities, especially in New England, a farmer should be
able to pick up a second-hand turbine, at half the price asked for a
new one; and since these wheels do not depreciate rapidly, it would
serve his purpose as well, in most cases, as a new one.
[Illustration: A typical vertical turbine]
Reaction turbines may be either horizontal or vertical. If they are
vertical, it is necessary to connect them to the main shaft by means
of a set of bevel gears. These gears should be substantially large,
and if the teeth are of hard wood (set in such a manner that they can
be replaced when worn) they will be found more satisfactory than if of
cast or cut metal.
[Illustration: Two wheels on a horizontal shaft
(Courtesy of the C. P. Bradway Company, West Stafford, Conn.)]
The horizontal turbine is keyed to its shaft, like the impulse wheel,
so that the wheel shaft itself is used for driving, without gears or a
quarter-turn belt. (The latter is to be avoided, wherever possible.)
There are many forms of horizontal turbines; they are to be had of the
duplex type, that is, two wheels on one shaft. These are arranged so
that either wheel may be run separately, or both together, thus
permitting one to take advantage of the seasonal fluctuation in water
supply. A convenient form of these wheels includes draft tubes, by
which the wheel may be set several feet above the tailrace, and the
advantage of this additional fall still be preserved. In this case the
draft tube must be airtight so as to form suction, when filled with
escaping water, and should be proportioned to the size of the wheel.
Theoretically these draft tubes might be 34 feet long, but in practice
it has been found that they should not exceed 10 or 12 feet under
ordinary circumstances. They permit the wheel to be installed on the
main floor of the power station, with the escape below, instead of
being set just above the tailrace level itself, as is the case when
draft tubes are not used.
Reaction turbines when working under a variable load require water
governors (like impulse wheels) although where the supply of water is
large, and the proportion of power between water wheel and dynamo is
liberal--say two to one, or more--this necessity is greatly reduced.
Reaction wheels as a rule govern themselves better than impulse
wheels, due both to the fact that they use more water, and that they
operate in a small airtight case. The centrifugal ball governor is the
type usually used with reaction wheels as well as with impulse wheels.
This subject will be discussed more fully later.
_Installing a Power Plant_
In developing a power prospect, the dam itself is usually not the site
of the power plant. In fact, because of danger from flood water and
ice, it is better to locate it in a more protected spot, leading the
water to the wheel by means of a race and flume.
[Illustration: Bird's-eye view of a developed water-power plant]
A typical crib dam, filled with stone, is shown in section in the
diagram, and the half-tone illustration shows such a dam in course of
construction. The first bed of timbers should be laid on hard-pan or
solid rock in the bed of the stream parallel to its flow. The second
course, across the stream, is then begun, being spiked home by means
of rods cut to length and sharpened by the local blacksmith, from
3/4-inch Norway iron. Hemlock logs are suitable for building the crib;
and as the timbers are finally laid, it should be filled in and made
solid with boulders. This filling in should proceed section by
section, as the planking goes forward, otherwise there will be no
escape for the water of the stream, until it rises and spills over
the top timbers. The planking should be of two-inch chestnut, spiked
home with 60 penny wire spikes. When the last section of the crib is
filled with boulders and the water rises, the remaining planks may be
spiked home with the aid of an iron pipe in which to drive the spike
by means of a plunger of iron long enough to reach above the level of
the water. When the planking is completed, the dam should be well
gravelled, to within a foot or two of its crest. Such dams are
substantial, easily made with the aid of unskilled labor, and the
materials are to be had on the average farm with the exception of the
hardware.
[Illustration: Cross-section of a rock and timber dam]
This dam forms a pond from which the race draws its supply of water
for the wheel. It also serves as a spillway over which the surplus
water escapes. The race should enter the pond at some convenient
point, and should be protected at or near its point of entrance by a
bulkhead containing a gate, so that the supply of water may be cut off
from the race and wheel readily. The lay of the land will determine
the length and course of the race. The object of the race is to secure
the required head by carrying a portion of the available water to a
point where it can escape, by a fall of say 30° to the tailrace. It
may be feasible to carry the race in a line almost at right angles to
the stream itself, or, again, it may be necessary to parallel the
stream. If the lay of the land is favorable, the race may be dug to a
distance of a rod or so inshore, and then be permitted to cut its own
course along the bank, preventing the water escaping back to the river
or brook before the site of the power plant is reached, by building
suitable retaining embankments. The race should be of ample size for
conveying the water required without too much friction. It should end
in a flume constructed stoutly of timbers. It is from this flume that
the penstock draws water for the wheel. When the wheel gate is closed
the water in the mill pond behind the dam, and in the flume itself
should maintain an approximate level. Any surplus flow is permitted to
escape over flushboards in the flume; these same flushboards maintain
a constant head when the wheel is in operation by carrying off what
little surplus water the race delivers from the pond.
[Illustration: Detail of bulkhead gate]
At some point in the race or flume, the flow should be protected from
leaves and other trash by means of a rack. This rack is best made of
1/4 or 1/2-inch battens from 1-1/2 to 3 inches in width, bolted
together on their flat faces and separated a distance equal to the
thickness of the battens by means of iron washers. This rack will
accumulate leaves and trash, varying with the time of year and should
be kept clean, so as not to cut down the supply of water needed by the
wheel.
The penstock, or pipe conveying water from the flume to the wheel,
should be constructed of liberal size, and substantially, of two-inch
chestnut planking, with joints caulked with oakum, and the whole well
bound together to resist the pressure of the water. Means should be
provided near the bottom for an opening through which to remove any
obstructions that may by accident pass by the rack. Many wheels have
plates provided in their cases for this purpose.
The tailrace should be provided with enough fall to carry the escaping
water back to the main stream, without backing up on the wheel itself
and thus cutting down the head.
It is impossible to make any estimates of the cost of such a
water-power plant. The labor required will in most instances be
supplied by the farmer himself, his sons, and his help, during times
when farm operations are slack.
_Water Rights of the Farmer_
The farmer owns the bed of every stream not navigable, lying within
the boundary lines of the farm; and his right to divert and make use
of the water of such streams is determined in most states by common
law. In the dry-land states where water is scarce and is valuable for
irrigation, a special set of statutes has sprung up with the
development of irrigation in this country.
A stream on the farm is either public or private; its being navigable
or "floatable" (suitable for floating logs) determining which. Water
rights are termed in law "riparian" rights, and land is riparian only
when water flows over it or along its borders.
Green (Law for the American Farmer) says:
"Water is the common and equal property of every one through whose
land it flows, and the right of each land-owner to use and consume it
without destroying, or unreasonably impairing the rights of others, is
the same. An owner of land bordering on a running stream has the right
to have its waters flow naturally, and none can lawfully divert them
without his consent. Each riparian proprietor has an equal right with
all the others to have the stream flow in its natural way without
substantial reduction in volume, or deterioration in quality, subject
to a proper and reasonable use of its waters for domestic,
agricultural and manufacturing purposes, and he is entitled to use it
himself for such purposes, but in doing so must not substantially
injure others. In addition to the right of drawing water for the
purposes just mentioned, a riparian proprietor, if he duly regards the
rights of others, and does not unreasonably deplete the supply, has
also the right to take the water for some other proper uses."
Thus, the farmer who seeks to develop water-power from a stream
flowing across his own land, has the right to divert such a stream
from its natural channel--providing it is not a navigable or floatable
stream--but in so doing, he must return it to its own channel for
lower riparian owners. The generation of water-power does not pollute
the water, nor does it diminish the water in quantity, therefore the
farmer is infringing on no other owner's rights in using the water for
such a purpose.
When a stream is a dividing line between two farms, as is frequently
the case, each proprietor owns to the middle of the stream and
controls its banks. Therefore to erect a dam across such a private
stream and divert all or a part of the water for power purposes,
requires the consent of the neighboring owner. The owner of the dam is
responsible for damage due to flooding, to upstream riparian owners.
PART II
ELECTRICITY