New Hydropower

[Dennis]

  New Hydropower

Hey all,

  Over the last couple years I have been doing research into hydroelectric power, and have come up with two new designes.

  The first is an overshot wheel that is cheap and easy to build. This design was was crafted for the homeowner. It does not use special tools to build and all of the componants are off the shelf-except the axle which requires welding.

  The second design is what I call a Gravity Wheel. It is the simplest and cheapest device I have come across yet that harnesses the power of flowing water. It can be used for river, tide or ocean water flow.

 For more information, please visit my site at http://WildWaterPower.com

-Dennis  

[Vtbsr]

Hi Dennis, After looking at your 2 water wheels i have some concerns. With the 10' head on the overshot and the flow, it seems like a crossflow would be better. You would have higher rpm and effiency would be higher.There could be icing in the winter.     On the gravity wheel the buckets could hold up to 240 lbs of water that would have to be lifted to the top of the wheel.Would the vanes in the stream have the force to lift the 240lbs? The water might just flow around the vanes. You might have to go from 5 gal  to 1 gal for the pick up buckets. Your flow from the collection tank, might be to low to get any useable power. This is just my opinion i don't mean to rain on your parade.

[Dennis]

    Ok, for the overshot wheel ,I am running about 40% efficiency. A turbine would be more efficient. But then there is the cost factor. My whole setup costs less than $3,000 and you can start building it with the cash in your pocket.

    This cost benefit analysis grows better for my wheel as the amount of water you have to work with grows. I was unable to find a crossflow turbine online with price, but I did find a 9 inch turbine that is for between 6-12 foot of head. It is priced at 4,500 dollars-without alternator.

    So as the volume of water you have goes up (over 1000GPM), and the size of the turbine grows, so does the reason you have to check my design out.

As for icing, I cannot answer that definitively. I ran the wheel for three days during a cold snap when the temp was in the teens to zero. I did not have a problem over that time, the water is moving to quickly to freeze in the buckets. It did freeze on everything else!          But on the moving parts-no problem. But that was just three days. I would like to have run it for a week before I say for certain that there is no reason for concern.

 As for the Gravity Wheel, It is meant to be BIG!  Take any mid sized river- a hundred thousand gallons a minute at five miles an hour. Put huge flat paddles in the way. Do you think it will stop the river? All of it flow around?

 I have to admit, the Gravity wheel is a rip off. I stole the idea! But I have the patent due to the fact the original design was for raising water for irrigation! They were never made with a turbine attached. So who's the man now?!

 http://www.experimentarium.dk/uk/naturvidenskab_og_teknik/schiolers/index.html

My parade is fine thank you

[Oso]

I think that Vtbsr asked a very legitimate question on the potential output of the gravity wheel. Dennis is assuming a 5 mph flow rate, or 7.3 fps. While some of the big rivers meet or exceed that, there are many smaller or medium sized rivers that do not. As you drop the flow rate from 7 fps to lower rates, the wheel will become less efficient. At some point, the wheel will eventually stop.

Personally, I would like to see him post his design parameters and expected output at various flows for one (or more) of his gravity wheels.

An example would be

18. ft diameter wheel
    
36. paddles  1ft high by 2ft wide
    
12. water buckets, 5 gal size,
    
    

water collector/storage tank 240 gal

effective head between tank & turbine, 6-8 ft depending on how full the tank is

at stream flow of 7.3 fps (5mph)

expected wheel rpm

net gpm delivered to tank

watts output

at stream flow of 5 fps

expected wheel rpm

net gpm delivered to tank

watts output

flow at which wheel will stop, expressed in fps.

Feel free to change those sizes Dennis, those were just my guesses based on your drawing.

Oso

[Dennis]

  Well I have to admit, I do not know. I have yet to quantify the Gravity Wheel. The problem is I understand basic forces and economics involved, but the Math is a bit complicated. In the web site listed in my previous posting, the math is all laid out, sort of. It is a bit confusing. The guy just cannot break it down into something simple, which is a bit annoying.

  Look, All I know is if a river has 20,000 gallons a minute flowing at 3 miles an hour, that is a lot of power. The question has always been how to harness that power without a dam, environmental damage and still change it to a force that can run a generator. My design does all of that.

  I have a new picture that will give everyone some perspective. It is not completely right, there should be at least three paddles in at all times, the cables to hold it in place are not shown, and the water collector is too big. But my artist turned out to be a bit too attached to the happy weed, so I am amazed that it is done.

  But it does put it into the right context. I think 50 foot is the shortest it should be, and the river should be at least 10,000 gallons a minute, flowing at least 3 miles an hour. This is all an educated guess of course. I have yet to resolve the question of "is it better to raise less water, higher?" and "what size buckets should I run with all of the variables listed above?"

  Another aspect is "How do I harness the changing flow of the river?" I think with that one I should make the buckets fit the lowest flow the river gets to. This way it never stops, and when the river speeds up, more power is generated.

  I am also working on a variable AC system to go along with all of this. I am not sure if this has ever been done, but I am looking to make the AC generators excitation field control Frequency (ie, no matter what the load or the river flow the generator runs 60 Hertz); then run that into a voltage regulator. So the only thing that varies is the amperage.

  This is a lot of time and effort for something I have yet to make a dime with, no one seems interested in and everyone on these sites just put it down. Great. I should have studied business instead of technology, my life would have been a Dilbert cartoon, but someday I would be the pointy haired boss.

 

[Dennis]

Ok, that turned out to be a bit bigger than expected. Lets try that again.

[Dennis]

Well I have to admit, I do not know. I have yet to quantify the Gravity Wheel. The problem is I understand basic forces and economics involved, but the Math is a bit complicated. In the web site listed in my previous posting, the math is all laid out, sort of. It is a bit confusing. The guy just cannot break it down into something simple, which is a bit annoying.

  Look, All I know is if a river has 20,000 gallons a minute flowing at 3 miles an hour, that is a lot of power. The question has always been how to harness that power without a dam, environmental damage and still change it to a force that can run a generator. My design does all of that.

  I have a new picture that will give everyone some perspective. It is not completely right, there should be at least three paddles in at all times, the cables to hold it in place are not shown, and the water collector is too big. But my artist turned out to be a bit too attached to the happy weed, so I am amazed that it is done.

  But it does put it into the right context. I think 50 foot is the shortest it should be, and the river should be at least 10,000 gallons a minute, flowing at least 3 miles an hour. This is all an educated guess of course. I have yet to resolve the question of "is it better to raise less water, higher?" and "what size buckets should I run with all of the variables listed above?"

  Another aspect is "How do I harness the changing flow of the river?" I think with that one I should make the buckets fit the lowest flow the river gets to. This way it never stops, and when the river speeds up, more power is generated.

  I am also working on a variable AC system to go along with all of this. I am not sure if this has ever been done, but I am looking to make the AC generators excitation field control Frequency (ie, no matter what the load or the river flow the generator runs 60 Hertz); then run that into a voltage regulator. So the only thing that varies is the amperage.

  This is a lot of time and effort for something I have yet to make a dime with, no one seems interested in and everyone on these sites just put it down. Great. I should have studied business instead of technology, my life would have been a Dilbert cartoon, but someday I would be the pointy haired boss.

[harrysaunders]

HI,

   You got some good idea's. Here's something to think on. Most people don't have a river flowing through their back garden. If you collect bathwater, rainwater or any other waste water in a big tank then you might be able to come up with a generation unit. One advantage with this is you can control the amount of power generated by the flow rate.