The Effect of Paddle Number and Immersed Radius Ratio on Water Wheel Performance.

Abstract: This paper aimed to study the effect of paddle number and immersed radius ratio on water wheel performance. The water wheel models were tested for their performances in water channel. 3 HP pump was used to circulate the water with the velocity in the channel of 0.3 m/s. The torque load was varied and the rotational speed was measured then the maximum power was determined for each water wheel model. The paddle number was varied from 6 to 12. The immersed radius was varied from 0.05 to 0.15 m when the whole radius of water wheel was fixed at 0.20 m in order to obtain the immersed radius ratio of 0.25, 0.5 and 0.75. From the result, it was found that the highest performance occurred when the paddle number was 6 and the immersed radius ratio was 0.5. The torque load at the maximum power depended on the immersed radius ratio. And at the same immersed radius ratio, the 6, 8 and 12 paddle number water wheel models had the same torque load at the maximum power. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]