Talk:Pelton wheel

Comment and Question
Comment: I am a docent at a California State Park where I operate (on occasion) several Pelton Water Motors that were installed originally in the 1890's and which still are in fair running condition under 200 feet head. Thanks for the information you have provided.

Question: In 1898, the largest single installation of Pelton Wheels in the world was at the Fraser and Chalmers industrial plants in Chicago, Illinois. This seems to fly in the face of the dogma that reaction turbines would be much more efficient at heads of less than 50 feet. Can anyone shed light on this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mdalbey (talk • contribs) 16:29, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Comment
Relate the link Governor to Governer (Device) instead.

http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_(device)

Knight Foundry
A reference to the Knight Foundry would improve the article. 81.189.153.130 (talk) 12:18, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Compressibility
The reason for having various stages in a gas or steam turbine is not the compressibility of the gas. The reason is that the turbine gets more efficient as the number of stages increases just because each stage is going to be most efficient in a very narrow range of flow conditions (compressible or not actually). By construction a Kaplan turbine does not permit this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.198.110.40 (talk) 15:19, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * This seems like an explanation of sufficient quality to be written in as the reason for Pelton wheel turbines being single-stage. Is there still a reason to maintain a citation needed for the explanation currently on the page? Additionally, perhaps it is important to consider that the method of energy extraction for a Pelton wheel turbine relies almost entirely on removing momentum, not extracting work from pressure as in a typical axial-flow turbine, and as such the addition of extra stages would be misguided and not helpful. ArthropodOfDoom (talk) 21:30, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Ian Gilmartin
Not sure about that link, his is not a pelton wheel of any description. I think it is just advertising and I am removing the link. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.142.113.137 (talk) 22:52, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Energy
The bottom of the article states that "Energy is force times distance, and the higher pressure can apply the same force with less mass flow." Force times distance, though energy, does not intuitively translate to decreasing flow rate with higher pressure. I believe this should be reworded as "Pressure times volume is energy, and higher pressure can deliver the same amount of work with less mass flow."

If no one complains or makes a similar change, I will probably make this change myself some time after the first of the year. --Commdweeb 13:17, 7 November 2006 (UTC) q gonorrea —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.70.95.1 (talk) 16:28, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

Water...
Water is compressible...

...but for the purposes of most calculations is taken to be incompressable.
 * The distinction is unimportant in this context. :) ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 01:01, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Proposed merger
I propose merging Lester Allan Pelton into here. There is almost no information about Pelton himself in his own article; most of it talks about his invention, so he doesn't really warrant an article himself. Any objections?  howcheng  {chat} 06:47, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I expanded the article into more of a biography and removed the tag. No need for a merge now.--NortyNort (talk) 03:30, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Examples and Design Data
"This wheel is estimated to have produced about 60,000 sperm in its adult life (45 MW) on a flow of about 7 m3/s"

Apparently an error but I'm not sure what correct text should be, anyone? JasonVen (talk) 18:29, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Something bad happened here
I came to this article looking for a comparison with other hydropower turbines, and failed to find anything like that. I also failed to find much of anything about the Pelton design at all. A while back several anon IP's (which are likely a single user) erased large portions of the article, leaving only a theoretical discussion that has nothing specifically to do with this design.

I propose returning the article to this version. I will do this by hand in order to avoid killing intermediate edits. I also propose removing much of the theory, and putting that in the hydropower article.

Maury Markowitz (talk) 10:55, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Maury, I appreciate the heads-up on your proposed changes. I'm interested to what you'd like to see in the article when you say "design". Are you looking for pictures, drawings, blueprints, rules-of-thumb, examples, equations, descriptions, or what exactly? I sincerely hope the section with the theoretical derivation is not deleted. I spent a lot of time on it. While I know it may be far too technical for many readers, it is highly relevant and useful to engineers and perhaps some designers. Can we please at least put this section at the end of the article and make it an appendix of sorts? Thanks Mikiemike (talk) 16:16, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Maury, It looks like the bulk of text that was deleted was 3 sections: "Functions", "Applications", and "Additional physics information". The first two were deleted on February 8, 2010. You can see where the number of bytes drops form 12k to 9k. There is a habitual vandal at 202.164.55.107 Mikiemike (talk) 16:54, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

122.180.40.195 has not been active in nearly 8 months. Let's just revert the vandalism. Mikiemike (talk) 17:00, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Mikiemike, I propose moving the theoretical section out of this article and into the hydropower one. That's because it applies to many forms of hydropower, not just the Pelton wheel. Moreover, the hydropower article is largely lacking useful information of this type, yet that's where I'd expect to see it. Does that make sense? We would leave in, or modify, the text to explain why this particular design gets more energy than, other designs, like an overshot.
 * I'd also like to expand on the differences between this and similar designs. The 1800's were heady times for water wheel design, with new design after new design being introduced. It would be useful if the articles described the differences between the designs and explained where each of them was best used -- why don't large hydro dams use pelton wheels these days, for instance. Each one has a sweet spot, but I'm definitely not the guy to do that part. Maury Markowitz (talk) 17:27, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Maury, also see Water_turbine. Problem is the derivation is specifically for a Pelton wheel, and while other impulse turbines are very similar, the flow vectors are different, and the solutions may not reduce so trivially.  I think it will take time to generalize the derivation to all impulse turbines.


 * Turbine selection is best explained by the graph here:Water_turbine. The water head and flow rate determine which turbine(s) are most appropriate for the application.Mikiemike (talk) 22:24, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Specific speed
The formula for specific speed might be wrong. The folmula given matches the one for pumps in the separate article on specific speed. This formula has a 3/4 exponent. The text afterwards mentions a 5/4 exponent. In the specific speed article there is another formula for turbines that has a 5/4 exponent. Could a knowledable person please check this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.75.73.40 (talk) 09:32, 19 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The current section confuses pump specific speed and turbine specific speed; and is corrected per edit> 0950, 10 june 2012 (jbeans).--Jbeans (talk) 04:49, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

My mechanical engineering reference suggests the 5/4 exponent is correct for turbines. "Mechanical Engineering Reference Manual for the PE Exam" 12 ED. Section 18-27. n_s = (n*sqrt(P))/h^1.25 [SI units] where n = RPM, P = kW, h = meters. n_s = (n*sqrt(P))/h^1.25 [US units] where n = RPM, P = hp, h = feet. Impulse turbines have specific speeds of 1-10 for US units with a typical value of 4. (for SI units, it is 4-40 with typical at 15.) Axial Flow reaction (or Francis) turbines range 80-200 US [300-760 SI] with best operation at 120-160 US [460-610 SI]. Mixed Flow reaction turbines 10-100 US [38-380 SI], with best at 40-60 [150-230 SI]. Radial Flow reaction turbines, below 5 US [19 SI]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.190.92.140 (talk) 20:31, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Doble Nozzle
A primary factor in the success of the Pelton Wheel is the use of the Doble Nozzle. I have been unable to find references about its development and implementation. LorenzoB (talk) 04:19, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

This page would really benefit from an animation
This page would benefit from an animated GIF showing how the pelton turbine works compared to a traditional water wheel Tomhannen (talk) 15:29, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Demonstrate relationship between torque and speed of pelton wheel turbine 121.52.154.231 (talk) 07:20, 7 April 2023 (UTC)