A plan view of the Fourneyron turbine water-wheel
A plan view of the Fourneyron turbine water-wheel. In the center are a number of fixed curved “shutes” or guides, A, which direct the water against the buckets of the outer wheel, B, which revolves, and the water discharges at the circumference.
Only the input is driven; every other part of this model moves by physics (MuJoCo), and its ratios are measured. Run it live, change its parameters, or switch the friction off to see the output stop.
- Modelled as
- Brown's plan view, from above, gravity on. The water comes down on the middle and spreads outward over a fixed floor: a nearly level top 8 cm across, then a rounded edge falling 2.5 cm, which gives it its speed (about 0.7 m/s). 16 fixed curved guides (A), from 8.3 to 12 cm out, stand on the floor and turn it 65 degrees towards the way the wheel goes. It then passes through the 24 curved buckets of the wheel (B), from 13 to 16.5 cm out, which turn it back the other way. It leaves at the circumference, over the floor's rounded rim. The buckets hang just clear of the floor from a crown below it, which is joined to the upright shaft by arms. The vanes have rounded leading edges. The water is 220 parcels, each a smooth ball 0.9 cm across at 1 g/cm³. They start at rest on the level top, each down the middle of a channel between two guides, spread so that they reach the edge at a steady rate from 0.2 s to 9.5 s. Each parcel moves freely in three directions on three slides. It touches the floor, guides and buckets but not other parcels, and drops away beyond the rim. The water is the only input. Nothing is driven (there is a zero-torque driver), and the shaft works against a load (0.0001 N m s).
- Measured
- The first water reaches the buckets at about 1 s. From rest the wheel turns clockwise seen from above (Brown's arrows) and settles at about 1.2 rad/s (11 rev/min) while the water runs, never running back. The water leaves the buckets at the circumference and falls away. Contact penetration stays within 1.1 mm.
- Notes
- The water is modelled as separate parcels that do not touch one another. Its head is a fall over the rounded edge of the central floor rather than the pressure of a column in a closed supply pipe. The guides start at 8.3 cm out, leaving the middle for that floor, where Brown's reach nearly to the shaft. The parcels are released from rest on the floor rather than supplied continuously, and they drop onto the tail-water below the rim.
Film (MP4) · Still (PNG) · Spec (YAML) · Model (MJCF)
