Published Resources Details
Journal Article
- Title
- Trends in the development of water turbines
- In
- Journal of the Institution of Engineers, Australia
- Imprint
- vol. 22, no. 10-11, Oct-Nov 1950, pp. 217-
- Description
This paper, No.1038, was presented during the Engineering Conference, 1950, in Tasmania.
The author, A. Burn, MSc BE LLD MIEAust, is Professor of Engineering in the University of Tasmania.
When presented, this paper was accompanied by a large number of additional illustrations, representative of current practice, which were in the form of slides, and have not been included here.- Abstract
Industrial development over the past hundred years or so has been making continually increasing demands on the supply of power, and there is as yet no sign of the demand abating. In most countries the greater part of the present development is by steam power. Available coal supplies are still sufficient to maintain the necessary output for hundreds or even thousands of years, but coal is a wasting asset. Consequently, more and more attention is being paid to the development of the world's water power resources, which are permanent assets continually renewed by nature.
Until towards the end of last century, when electrical transmission of power was introduced, power plants consisted of small individual units, each works or factory having its own plant. Water power was not unimportant, and particularly in Europe many small water turbines up to a few hundred horsepower were in use.
It is, however, since the beginning of the present century that the greatest developments in the production of water power in large central stations have taken place, and this survey of the development of the water turbine will therefore be confined to the past fifty years. The scope of the paper has been restricted to the turbine proper, rather than attempting to deal with water power development as a whole, in order to allow of fairly detailed treatment.