Mill District

Mill District. . , For 3 Centuries The Middlebury Falls Powered A Bustling Mill District, First Came Waterwheels... , A waterwheel is a machine for extracting power directly from the flow of water. Waterwheels have been in use for centuries. The most common use of the water wheel was to grind wheat into flour and also for other uses such as running sawmills and even pounding linen for use in paper making. A waterwheel consists of a large wooden or metal wheel located just below a waterfall with a number of buckets arranged on the outside rim of the wheel to catch falling water from the waterfall. The falling water spins the wheel by filling the buckets, pushing down and around., Most commonly, the wheel is mounted vertically on an axle and transmits power through the turning axle driving belts or gears which turn other wheels to do various tasks., And Then Turbines... , The evolution from waterwheels to turbines took about one hundred years. This development occurred during the Industrial Revolution, using scientific principles and methods. The word turbine was coined by the French engineer Charles Bourdin in the early 19th century and is derived from the latin word for "whirling" or "vortex". Unlike a waterwheel, where the water spilled over the wheel, in a turbine the water is swirling downward (a whirlpool) over propeller blades which spin and turn a shaft which rotates an attached wheel. That wheel is connected to a system of belts and pullies to run the machinery of a mill. This improved technology allowed a small turbine to be as effective as a much larger water wheel., Now We Have Hydro Electric Power , So how do we get electricity from water? Falling water is the key, once again. The procedure is to build a dam on a river that has a waterfall. The dam stores lots of water behind the waterfall in a reservoir. Near the bottom of the dam's wall there is a tube or penstock. Gravity causes the water to flow through the penstock, inside the dam, and out through it downstream to a turbine with a propeller, which is turned by the moving water gushing over it. A shaft rising up from the propeller is spun around and around and goes into a motor called a generator and, by spinning, it generates electricity. Powerlines then brings the electricity to outlets in factories and homes., From Flammable Wood To A Stone Bridge