In every system of machinery deriving energy from a natural waterfall there exist the following parts:—
1. A supply channel or head race, leading the water from the highest accessible level to the site of the machine. This may be an open channel of earth, masonry or wood, laid at as small a slope as is consistent with the delivery of the necessary supply of water, or it may be a closed cast or wrought-iron pipe, laid at the natural slope of the ground, and about 3 ft. below the surface. In some cases part of the head race is an open channel, part a closed pipe. The channel often starts from a small storage reservoir, constructed near the stream supplying the water motor, in which the water accumulates when the motor is not working. There are sluices or penstocks by which the supply can be cut off when necessary.
2. Leading from the motor there is a tail race, culvert, or discharge pipe delivering the water after it has done its work at the lowest convenient level.
3. A waste channel, weir, or bye-wash is placed at the origin of the head race, by which surplus water, in floods, escapes.
4. The motor itself, of one of the kinds to be described presently, which either overcomes a useful resistance directly, as in the case of a ram acting on a lift or crane chain, or indirectly by actuating transmissive machinery, as when a turbine drives the shafting, belting and gearing of a mill. With the motor is usually combined regulating machinery for adjusting the power and speed to the work done. This may be controlled in some cases by automatic governing machinery.
§ 169. Water Motors with Artificial Sources of Energy.—The great convenience and simplicity of water motors has led to their adoption in certain cases, where no natural source of water power is available. In these cases, an artificial source of water power is created by using a steam-engine to pump water to a reservoir at a great elevation, or to pump water into a closed reservoir in which there is great pressure. The water flowing from the reservoir through hydraulic engines gives back the energy expended, less so much as has been wasted by friction. Such arrangements are most useful where a continuously acting steam engine stores up energy by pumping the water, while the work done by the hydraulic engines is done intermittently.
§ 170. Energy of a Water-fall.—Let Ht be the total fall of level from the point where the water is taken from a natural stream to the point where it is discharged into it again. Of this total fall a portion, which can be estimated independently, is expended in overcoming the resistances of the head and tail races or the supply and discharge pipes. Let this portion of head wasted be ɧr. Then the available head to work the motor is H = Ht − ɧr. It is this available head which should be used in all calculations of the proportions of the motor. Let Q be the supply of water per second. Then GQH foot-pounds per second is the gross available work of the fall. The power of the fall may be utilized in three ways. (a) The GQ pounds of water may be placed on a machine at the highest level, and descending in contact with it a distance of H ft., the work done will be (neglecting losses from friction or leakage) GQH foot-pounds per second. (b) Or the water may descend in a closed pipe from the higher to the lower level, in which case, with the same reservation as before, the pressure at the foot of the pipe will be p = GH pounds per square foot. If the water with this pressure acts on a movable piston like that of a steam engine, it will drive the piston so that the volume described is Q cubic feet per second. Then the work done will be pQ = GHQ foot-pounds per second as before. (c) Or lastly, the water may be allowed to acquire the velocity v = √2gH by its descent. The kinetic energy of Q cubic feet will then be 1⁄2GQv2/g = GQH, and if the water is allowed to impinge on surfaces suitably curved which bring it finally to rest, it will impart to these the same energy as in the previous cases. Motors which receive energy mainly in the three ways described in (a), (b), (c) may be termed gravity, pressure and inertia motors respectively. Generally, if Q ft. per second of water act by weight through a distance h1, at a pressure p due to h2 ft. of fall, and with a velocity v due to h3 ft. of fall, so that h1 + h2 + h3 = H, then, apart from energy wasted by friction or leakage or imperfection of the machine, the work done will be
GQh1 + pQ + (G/g) Q (v2/2g) = GQH foot pounds,
the same as if the water acted simply by its weight while descending H ft.