Welcome to Wild Water Power!(Best viewed with Microsoft Explorer-Or its all over the place) Last updated: 06/20/07 Shown below are my various forms of new hydro power. My first attempt was an overshot wheel design with a chain drive. My second attempt was a Persian Waterwheel design which makes electricity, which I call a Gravity Wheel. My last and by far the best, my Pressure Wheel design which I am still developing. The chain drive Overshot wheel is cheap, but too complicated. Getting the chain onto the wheel was always a problem. Even when getting it on perfectly the pressures involved were great. This caused wear and tear on the system. Pictures of this wheel are on the bottom and in on the Picture gallery page. It is probably best to go with a gear box. There are a few links on my “contacts” page showing wheels that use gear boxes. The Gravity wheel is a great design. The flow of the river rotates the wheel, which lifts water in buckets which are connected to the side. This was inspired by the ancient Norias, or Persian water wheels. The difference between the Norias and the gravity wheel is just the materials used to build it and the water raised is used to run down to a turbine, not put on an aqueduct for irrigation. My latest design I call a Pressure Wheel. I got the original idea from this site: http://aquamor.tripod.com/Wheel. htm. I realized that this fellow had created a wonderful water lifting devise. It also dawned on me that it has the perfect characteristics to garner power off a river. The problem with my Gravity wheel design was that of size. To create fifty foot of head, you had to make a fifty foot wheel. This is not a solution for a homeowner, nor is it all that practical for mass production. Using a spiral pump changes all of that; it turns rotational movement into pressure. My design differs from the Aquamor site since I run the pressurized water through a turbine and the pressurized air through an air motor. Both of these run one generator. The small one below is for test purposes. It is created out of PVC pipe and fiberglass reinforced plastic. It has and enclosed system. The fluid is scooped from the reservoir on the side; the fluid then goes through the spiral pump, which changes the movement of the wheel into pressurized air and fluid; that fluid then leaves the wheel through the rotating coupling and into the separator tank. From here the air goes to an air motor and the fluid through a Pelton turbine. The final step is when the fluid leaves the turbine and is gravity fed back into the reservoir. For this small prototype I did not spend the money for the turbine or air motor, it is for demonstration purposes. It takes slow movement and converts it into pressure. How much pressure? That is determined by four main factors.
-The size of the Restriction the spiral pump goes into -The number of spirals that are in the spiral pump. -The inside diameter of the spirals that are in the spiral pump. - -The air to water ratio in each spiral. So, what does this get rid of? It gets rid of any type of transmission or gearing to make the flow of the river or ocean usable. The pressure developed can be run into an off the shelf turbine. The wheel and spiral pump are made of things you can pick up at your local Hardware Depot .It is ridiculously simple, the spiral pump have one wearable part, the rotating coupling that allows the pressurized water to come out of the wheel .This system can be used on overshot, breast and undershot wheels. Traditionally overshot wheel have been the true prime movers of the Wheel world. But this is now not the case. Large rivers will be much easier and cheaper to harness with an undershot design. In the ocean there is no limit to how big this system can be made. Note: Think of it this way, this is not so much a waterwheel as an extension of a turbine that allows that turbine to harness large quantities of water, without a dam. A little about myself. I have an Associated Degree from Denver Automotive and Diesel College. I was in the Navy for four years working on the electrical systems of F-14's as an Aviation Electrician. And I recently graduated from the University of Connecticut with an independent study degree in the History of Technology.
Short video explaining the basic concepts that make it work. Videos use Quicktime. Please ignore Flash, he is a bad boy.
I found this one online. It is a spiral pump in its traditional job, raising water. I think it is about six foot tall (the site does not say), and raises 16 l/min up to 25m ht. That is a lot of pressure to lift that high. Even though it is very crude, is not floating (one has to wonder what happens when the big flood comes) it is the largest, heavy duty spiral pump I have found. If this was mine I would fit it to not only raise water but also produce electricity. It gives an indication of what is possible. One day I would like to think of this as small.
Gravity Wheel-converts the flow of a river into water pressure by lifting the water; thus creating head. It acts as a huge transformer, changing high volume-low pressure into low volume-high pressure. The problem with this design is the head created is limited to the size of the wheel itself.
CHAIN DRIVE OVERSHOT WATERWHEEL- This was my first waterpower project. It is nine foot in diameter, five foot wide and produces 1500 watts with approximately 1000 gallons per minute. The chain drive is much more complex than a spiral pump setup. The wheel itself is great, it is made of 4x4's and used plastic buckets. This is very cheap and I am going to eventually retofit it to have a spiral pump and turbine.
Despite the simplicity and cheap cost of the Bladeless turbine, we have found it to be very inefficient at converting the air and water pressure built by the Pressure wheel into rotational movement. We are now pursuing other avenues of power production. Stay tuned.
This is my latest work. It has 400 foot of 3/4 hose and makes 50 PSI with the spiral pump plugged. I am currently working on prototyping new paddles. With the spiral pump I am looking to run the wheel very slowly and generate high pressure. With this model in mind, I am making paddles with vanes to increase the impact area, decrease the turbulence created. In many respects I am trying to copy the efficiency of a turbine blade on my paddles.
This is the prototype put together by Mark in Canada. It floats, pumps 2.5 gallons a minute and maintains a pressure of 45 PSI. It provides grey water to his cabin and here it is making 6 Watts. We should be able to get much more power, but the bladeless turbine is a disappointment. Until I build a much bigger version it is not economically practical to buy a turbine and air motor to produce power.
Here is a great illustration. It clearly shows how the columns of fluid build on one another and how the rotation of the wheel and the Spiral pump work in counter directions. The air compresses and allows the pressure of the columns to build on one another. Notice the air going out of the lift pipe. It provides buoyancy and lifts the water higher than then the pressure alone.
