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Water wheel design
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By SeanR, Section Hydro Posted on Sat Jan 20, 2007 at 02:27:11 PM MST
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I am in the process of designing a water wheel. My question is, does anybody have an empirical formula for the optimal bucket design
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| Hi all,
I am in the process of designing a water wheel to harvest some energy from the exit of our lake. The head is 10 feet and flow will vary from 60 cubic feet minute to over 400 cubic feet minute. Because of the wide range in flow and relatively short head I have opted for an overshot water wheel.
I could probably get up to 30 to 40 feet head for a different type of turbine but that would mean at least 500 feet of penstock and as much of wire coming back to the house and so far my conclusion is I can't afford the pipe that could allow taking advantage of the flow during peak season.
My question is, does anybody have an empirical formula for the optimal bucket design. From the literature I have managed to find so far 20 degrees angle from the tangent of the wheel seems the best for a strait sided bucket in order to retain water as long as possible and also favour water entry while emptying rapidly before the return. But the optimal shape must be some kind of an ellipse in my mind and that is what I am looking for.
This is what I have drafted so far:

This link although in German has nice graphics:
http://www.opentheory.org/wasserrad/text.phtml
Suggestion on some books or literature on the net would also be great.
Thanks
Sean
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