This current-driven water lift collects water around its rim and guides it through trough-shaped arms to a central hollow shaft. Water leaves at axle height into a stationary receiving channel. The calculator estimates full-bucket delivery from bucket count, capacity and an entered revolution time.
Current Wheel Water Lift Interactive Calculator
Estimate full-bucket delivery at an entered turn time. Watch water move through radial trough arms into a hollow central shaft. Stream speed gives the distance water travels during one entered wheel revolution.
Equation Used
- N complete collecting buckets.
- All buckets fill to entered capacity and empty fully once per turn.
- Prescribed constant revolution time.
- Stream speed does not determine wheel speed without additional geometry and load data.
Illustrative wheel dimensions and filling phases. Actual loaded speed, torque and hydraulic losses are not calculated.
Water travels inward to the axle
Hiscox figure 478 describes the buckets and arms as troughs that carry water into a hollow central shaft. This differs from a wheel that tips its buckets into a channel above the rim. The animation follows the central-outlet arrangement, with a blue sequence showing collection, carrying and inward drainage.
The current carries the lower part of the wheel downstream. As a filled arm rises above the axle, its inward slope allows water to reach the center. The illustrated filling and draining phases explain that path; they are not a time-resolved hydraulic calculation.
Estimate delivery from an observed turn time
Count the collecting buckets, enter their usable volume and enter an observed or assumed seconds-per-revolution value. The result is a full-filling estimate. It is useful for comparing capacities at the same wheel speed, but it does not predict the wheel’s speed or whether it can lift the load.
The receiving channel is at shaft height. Wheel diameter, immersion and outlet elevation are not dimensioned by this calculator.
Capacity, rate and stream travel
With N buckets of C litres, full capacity carried per revolution is V=N C. At T seconds per revolution, ideal delivery is Q=V/T litres per second, or 60V/T litres per minute.
The stream-speed input is used in D=v T, the distance the stream travels during one entered wheel revolution. That distance does not establish wheel circumference, efficiency or a starting margin.
Worked capacity example
Eight 8-litre buckets give 64 litres per turn. If a turn takes 8 seconds and every bucket fills and empties fully, delivery is 8 L/s or 480 L/min. At a stream speed of 0.6 m/s, the stream travels 4.8 m during that turn.
If turn time doubles while the other inputs stay fixed, ideal delivery halves and stream travel per turn doubles. If bucket capacity doubles at the same turn time, ideal delivery doubles.
Do not confuse imposed speed with operating capability
Starting and running speed depend on wheel geometry, immersion, load and losses. The four inputs compare capacity and an entered turn time; they do not determine whether the stream can drive a particular loaded wheel.
Incomplete filling, spillage, arm-flow resistance, leakage and residual water reduce delivery. Torque, head, immersion and friction must be considered separately to establish operating speed. The animation runs at the entered turn time even when that assumption would be unsuitable for a real installation.
Water-lift questions
Why does the water leave at the center?
Its trough arms carry collected water inward to a hollow shaft, which discharges into a receiving channel at axle height.
Does reducing stream speed stop this animation?
No. Turn time is entered independently. No universal stall condition can be calculated from these four inputs.
Why is bucket size not a scale drawing?
Capacity alone does not specify the bucket’s dimensions. The shown shape is illustrative.
Is the displayed delivery guaranteed?
No. It assumes complete filling and discharge once per turn.
Reference
Gardner D. Hiscox, Mechanical Movements, Powers, Devices and Appliances, printed page 134, figure 478: radial collecting troughs and a hollow-shaft outlet. The capacity-rate calculation follows directly from litres per bucket, buckets per turn and seconds per turn.
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