WI: Earlier Pelton Wheels?

The Pelton Wheel is among the most efficient types of water turbines. While turbines, in general, date to no earlier than the 18th century, there are esrlier examples, most tantalizingly a water wheel from Roman Tunisia that was more properly a turbine. In general, we can say that a Pelton Wheel is up to 10 times as efficient as any other water wheel.

So what if some ingenious engineer stumbled across the efficient shape of a Pelton Wheel? Lore says that Pelton accidentally came up with the invention after seeing a cow get sprayed in the nose with a hose. Take that story for what you will. Conveniently, the first Pelton Wheel was wooden, so we don’t need to feel constrained by good metallurgy.

Lets be conservative, and say that a pre-industrial society would have difficulty in perfecting their construction, and rather than 10 times as efficient, they might be merely 5 time or thereabouts. How might the middle ages or even antiquity look with vastly more productive mills?

Or, less flamboyantly, how might the industrial revolution look if these turbines came into use a century early?
 
To justify bumping this thread, I’d like to explore the medieval potential of a Pelton wheel a little more.

First, I imagine it would spread among monastic orders, such as the Cistercians, due to their general industrial output, and their relative literacy and interconnectedness.

Second, we may see fewer but larger mills in certain areas, since all this extra power has to be used for something, after all. Having a water wheel spinning a grain mill five times as powerfully or quickly doesn’t do much for you, but having one that can spin a mill five times as large (or can spin five mills) does help. On the other hand, trip hammers scale up great, so we could see a nice bump in worked metal output. That could have some interesting knock-on effects, if we see, say, arms and armor becoming cheaper - could help state development proceed a little quicker. Relatedly, it might make blast furnaces more economical.
 

Philip

Donor
Second, we may see fewer but larger mills in certain areas, since all this extra power has to be used for something, after all. Having a water wheel spinning a grain mill five times as powerfully or quickly doesn’t do much for you, but having one that can spin a mill five times as large (or can spin five mills) does help.

What if we go the other route? Instead of a wheel with the same input and 5x output, can we go to a wheel of the same output but 1/5 input? Does this open new geographical areas to use the wheel?
 
What if we go the other route? Instead of a wheel with the same input and 5x output, can we go to a wheel of the same output but 1/5 input? Does this open new geographical areas to use the wheel?

Well, I'm not an engineer, but I'm not sure how well pelton wheels would scale down - I think there's a minimum size before they cease to have much of an advantage.
 
Isn't a Pelton wheel high revs and low torque? Good for electricity but not really for corn grinding, tilt hammers and the like?
 
Well, I'm not an engineer, but I'm not sure how well pelton wheels would scale down - I think there's a minimum size before they cease to have much of an advantage.
Well, I've seen quite a lot of pretty small ones that had been used even in relatively small scale 19th century mining operations. They used them quite extensively in that industry. I used to have a mine on my property where they had pulled carts in and out with a Pelton wheel system.
 
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