Development
Water wheels have been used historically to power mills of all types, but they are inefficient. Nineteenth-century efficiency improvements of water turbines allowed them to compete with steam engines (wherever water was available).
In 1826 Benoit Fourneyron developed a high efficiency (80%) outward-flow water turbine. Water was directed tangentially through the turbine runner, causing it to spin. Jean-Victor Poncelet designed an inward-flow turbine in about 1820 that used the same principles. S. B. Howd obtained a U.S. patent in 1838 for a similar design.
In 1848 James B. Francis, while working as head engineer of the Locks and Canals company in the water-powered factory city of Lowell, Massachusetts, improved on these designs to create a turbine with 90% efficiency. He applied scientific principles and testing methods to produce a very efficient turbine design. More importantly, his mathematical and graphical calculation methods improved turbine design and engineering. His analytical methods allowed confident design of high efficiency turbines to exactly match a site's flow conditions.
Read more about this topic: Francis Turbine
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion.”
—John Emerich Edward Dalberg, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902)
“Women, because of their colonial relationship to men, have to fight for their own independence. This fight for our own independence will lead to the growth and development of the revolutionary movement in this country. Only the independent woman can be truly effective in the larger revolutionary struggle.”
—Women’s Liberation Workshop, Students for a Democratic Society, Radical political/social activist organization. “Liberation of Women,” in New Left Notes (July 10, 1967)
“The proper aim of education is to promote significant learning. Significant learning entails development. Development means successively asking broader and deeper questions of the relationship between oneself and the world. This is as true for first graders as graduate students, for fledging artists as graying accountants.”
—Laurent A. Daloz (20th century)