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

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.