From
the primitive windmill to the well-known American-style windmill
.
Thus the wind mill got to be a
complete automatic motor, exactly at the moment at which it appeared the steam
engine and it soon began the series of improvements to become one of the most
important sources of driving force of the civilization. During the last two
hundred years, it was thought that the wind motor had arrived too late to be
able to be very useful to the Humanity. It had in addition a great defect:
working only when the wind blew at the rate of 16 kilometers per hour, it often
rested, sluggish, indeed when it was needed with greater urgency; it never
could be counted on. So, in spite of being more economic than all the other
motors, the wind mill was soon replaced by the most expensive, but safer, steam
engine. The picturesque and economic wind mills have been gone to ruin and
disappearing little by little; the high chimneys of the steam pumps soon
dominated the plain and deep territories of the skillful inhabitant of the
Netherlands, who still needs to defend them of the destructive sea.
The United States was the first country
that saw the possibility that the wind motor still render its benefits
to the modern civilization. In the middle of XIX century, most precisely
in the year 1854, in Ellington, Connecticut, United States, an inventor
called John Burnham devised the so called "American-style
windmill". This it is a very light and economic motor, that
moves when the wind has a minimum speed of eight kilometers per
hour. It consists of a small mill installed on a tower, formed of
metallic grating, established on concrete laying of foundations.
The mill is formed by small vanes or blades of galvanized iron,
whose number reaches at one hundred or more of these ones , they
are fixed in a double ring placed around the axis. But, as general
rule, the American-styled mill has of 3 to 3.50 meters of diameter
and 18 or more metal vanes. Normal to the plane of the mill and
directed backwards well balanced fixed wings protrude . They act
in the same way as the device of Meikle. When the wind veers it
turns with it the upper part of the mill, placing the wheel against
the direction of the airflow.
As the good mills are mounted on
ball bearings or rollers, the force necessary to rotate them is
very small as it is small the wing rudder. These mills have represented
an important step in the progress of agriculture in the plains and
prairies of the west of the United States, Argentina and Australia
during their history last century . Truly, without them, many of
the extensive plains without water that there is in the world would
continue unproductive, deserted and abandoned. For example: in Nebraska
there is abundant water, but it is in the subsoil, and at such depth
that it cannot serve to sustain the harvests in that zone, in which
scarcely rains. In addition in the valleys strong winds blow, almost
constantly ; so they were used by the farmers with advantage to
elevate the water by means of these light and economic metallic
mills. They had cause in the beginnings of the XX century that the
wind be used to irrigate an apparently inhospitable desert, transforming
it into fertile prairies and producing extensive fields of wheat.
Besides to elevate the water, the wind motors were used from their
beginnings widely to grind the grain, to cut the forage for the
cattle and to produce electrical light, an application that at the
present time is being stimulated again, since it is a way extremely
cleans to produce energy without by-products that ruin the environment.
The evolution of the American-style
wind mill .
It is very ingenious the means by which the variable force of the
wind provided a continuous and regular provision of electricity,
this device was used towards 1930, and worked as it is indicated.
A small wind motor was used, with its corresponding pump, which
sent the water to a container placed in the house in the farm. This
deposit consisted of a cylinder, where the water supported a pressure
of up to five kilograms by square centimeter, due to a heavy piston
properly ballasted, When this pressure was reached, and entering
the water, the piston raised and it pushed a pawl, that opened a
valve that poured the water, what made a connected hydraulic wheel
to a dynamo to move, and this way a sufficient energy was generated
to illuminate 20 electrical lamps. If there was an excess of current
it served to charge a storage battery. This was made up to eleven
elements and could provide electricity to illuminate the interior
and the outside of the farm during one week But as the motors worked
at least five hours daily for the lighting system with strong breezes,
not very often it was needed to resort to the battery for so long
periods of time.
Circa 1930, it seemed, nevertheless,
that the American wind mill was for a moment going to be left aside
. Without any doubt it is economic , light and of easy starting
, but according to the conclusions and studies of the professor
La Cour, after seventeen years of works and tests, its construction
could be still be perfected. This great Danish man took care of
the studies relative to wind mills for reasons of national interest.
As much in Denmark as in the North of Germany, the lack of great
coalmines prevented the progressive industries development , and
during many years Dane and German people were looking for other
sources of driving force. Not counting on great water supplies with
unevenness that could give rise to the construction of dams and
production of electrical energy by modern methods, they unavoidably
had to look for other solutions for the production of driving force.
This has resulted that Germany counts on a shining army of inventors
in what is related to gas and petroleum motors. And in those years
they became popular by a remarkable discovery carried out by its
industrial chemicals, and it was related to the potatoes. These
ingenious men experimented so economically with the use of potatoes
for alcohol production and obtaining it, that it got to be used
as a liquid fuel in their motors. This alcohol was in the motors
more economic than the gasoline or benzene, being developed the
studies of the potato alcohol as an alternative and permanent source
of renewable energy of great importance for the Humanity. It got
to be the main factor that regulated in Germany the price of the
gasoline. |
Mill of six vanes, 2 1/2 mts.
of diameter. Sight of side.
Giant mill , 6 meters
of diameter
Mill of six vanes,
2 1/2 meters of diameter. Front sight .
Very rare mill type,
known in the country with the name of "Jumbo helix" with
defenses formed by the flanks of the box.
Another "Jumbo"
with 2.75 meters vanes and 1.70 meters long arms . The box where
it moves has 2.75 X 3.35 X 1.30 meters and openings at the heart
for the exit of the air
Two vanes mill , to
be installed on a deck of 3 meters of diameter .
Small "jumbo"
with four vanes of 0,90 meters and arms of 0,75 meters long assembled
on a tower of
4,85 meters . |
