Handbook of Turbomachinery Second Edition Revised - Ventech!

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Earl Logan, Jr.
Knowledge of turbomachines has evolved slowly over centuries without the
benefit of sudden and dramatic breakthroughs. Turbomachines, such as
windmills and waterwheels, are centuries old. Waterwheels, which dip their
vanes into moving water, were employed in ancient Egypt, China, and
Assyria [1]. Waterwheels appeared in Greece in the second century B.C. and
in the Roman Empire during the first century B.C. A seven-ft-diameter
waterwheel at Monte Cassino was used by the Romans to grind corn at the
rate of 150 kg of corn per hour, and waterwheels at Arles ground 320 kg of
corn per hour [2]. The Doomsday Book, based on a survey ordered by
William the Conqueror, indicates the there were 5,624 water mills in
England in 1086. Besides the grinding of grain, waterwheels were used to
drive water pumps and to operate machinery. Agricola (1494–1555) showed
by illustrations how waterwheels were used to pump water from mines and
to crush metallic ores in the 16th century [3]. In 1685 Louis XIV had 221
piston pumps installed at Marly, France, for the purpose of supplying
3,200 m 3 of Seine River water per day to the fountains of the Versailles
palace. The pumps were driven by 14 waterwheels, each 12 m in diameter,
that were turned by the currents of the Seine [4]. The undershot waterwheel,
which had an efficiency of only 30%, was used up until the end of the 18th
century. It was replaced in the 19th century by the overshot waterwheel with
an efficiency of 70 to 90%. By 1850, hydraulic turbines began to replace
waterwheels [1]. The first hydroelectric power plant was built in Germany in
1891 and utilized waterwheels and direct-current power generation.
However, the waterwheels were soon replaced with hydraulic turbines (see
Chapter 15) and alternating-current electric power [6].
Although the use of wind power in sailing vessels appeared in
antiquity, the widespread use of wind power for grinding grain and pumping
water was delayed until the 7th century in Persia, the 12th century in
England, and the 15th century in Holland [5]. In the 17th century, Leibniz
proposed using windmills and waterwheels together to pump water from
mines in the Harz Mountains of Germany [4]. Dutch settlers brought Dutch
mills to America in the 18th century. This led to the development of a
multiblade wind turbine that was used to pump water for livestock. Wind
turbines were used in Denmark in 1890 to generate electric power. Early in
the 20th century American farms began to use wind turbines to drive
electricity generators for charging storage batteries. These wind-electric
plants were supplanted later by electricity generated by centrally located
steam-electric power plants, particularly after the Rural Electric Adminis-
Copyright © 2003 Marcel Dekker, Inc.