The history of the invention of the ball mill. History of the mill. Windmills of Holland

In which country and when invented windmills?

The history of the windmill also goes far away in the depths of the centuries. There was no accurate news on the manufacture of the first windmill. But it is known that there are already several millennia in China.. The wing wind turbine is the most ancient and at the same time the best type of engine to which the windmill belongs.
In antiquity to obtain the flour of the Israelis, like other peoples, Molly edible grains "in millstones". The work on the manual mill was not easy. He gradually entered the use of heavier millstones, which "rotated donkey" or other animals. But the mills leading to animals moved their drawbacks. By that time, the man had already learned to use water energy to rotate the water wheel, and the wind energy to swim on the sailing boat. And about the VII century n. e. In the arid steppes of Asia or the Middle and Middle East, they combined these two ideas, forcing the wind to rotate the reel. The first mention of windmills used in Iran to grind grain also refers to the VII century. AD So, from the millstone, a vertical shaft with sails, which turned when the wind blew. With the help of such simple windmills Molley wheat or barley, and also swung water from under the ground.
The first wind turbine was probably a simple device with a vertical axis of rotation, such as a device used in Persia 200 years before our era for grinding grain. The use of such a mill with a vertical axis of rotation was subsequently widespread in the countries of the Middle East. Later, a mill was developed with a horizontal axis of rotation, consisting of ten wooden racks equipped with transverse sails. A similar primitive type of windmill is applied to the present time in many countries of the Mediterranean basin. B XI V.Terry mills were widely used in the Middle East and got into Europe 10 century. When returning the Crusaders. In the Middle Ages in Europe, many local rights, including the right to refuse to resolve the construction of windmills, forced tenants to have an area for sowing grain near the mills of feudal places. Planting trees near windmills were forbidden to provide free wind. In XIV ". The Dutch became leading in the improvement of the designs of windmills and widely used them from this time to dry out the marshes and lakes in the delta R. Rhine.
Early mills with sails on a vertical shaft did not differ in high performance. But it has greatly increased with the understanding that more energy is produced when the blades or sails are attached to the horizontal shaft emerging from the tower. The horizontal shaft by means of gears reported the rotational movement of the vertical shaft, which rotated the horses attached to it. Then the mills were invented on goats, or "Pobbins". These mills rested on a post, under stop the beams, which allowed to turn the entire mill barn by setting the wings against the wind. According to the reason, the "Pobbins" could not be very large, and then they came up with another design: a fixed tower with a rotating roof ("tents" or "Dutch"). In the mills of this type, the main shaft comes out of the roof, thanks to where the wind blows, it can be deployed against the wind together with sail wings.
They consider windmills first appeared in the southern part of Europe (presumably in Greece) and quickly spread everywhere. Most authors believe that windmills appeared in Russia no earlier than the XVII century, although some researchers refer their appearance in Russia to XV in
At first they were brick, similar to huge barrels of facilities with wings.
In 1772, the Scottish inventor replaced sails on automatically broken and closing panels similar to the blinds.

How each other influenced the three elements of the oldest technologies of humanity: the wheel, a pottery circle and millstone? But completely definitely, that already in the era of the late Neolithic of these three tools and began what we call "progress". On the crossbows, door locks and no one else and did not think about the clock, and the millstone is already spinning. Even in the most ancient times, the rubbing of grain in flour began to perform on rotating one relative to other millstones. For a long time they continued to spin, thanks to the effort of human hands. Perhaps the use of mechanical strength turned out to be for the first time in demand in the production of flour because this work is very monotoned and unproductive. The greatest discovery in the history of mankind, comparable, perhaps, only with the ability to use the fire, was the use for the operation of a mechanical force of force other than muscular. Water and wind - this is what is first called for help. How did the process of turning the grain in flour? According to the lying horizontally, the lower reel moved rotationally upper cakes, having a hole in the middle. In this hole poured grain. It has moved into flour as it moves to the outer edge. To facilitate the process of grinding the millstone, radial straight or spiral-shaped grooves were applied. Install heavy stone circles vertically was impossible then, and how to bring the grain to the grinding then? The shaft that transmits an effort to the upper stone was vertically.

One of the earliest types of mills. The rotor (rotating part) of the windmill is located on the vertextal axis and its shaft is directly connected to the top elastic.
Windowing walls guide the air flow at half the windmill, and make it rotate. Such mills are known from the VII century to our era and for the first time, perhaps appeared in Persia. Layout from the German Museum (model on a scale of 1:20. Inv No. 79235) reproduces the Persian mill of the XVIII century.

In large millstones, the levers were attracted to him, who pushed employees, bypassing the mills in a circle. Then the levers were injected with animals. At that moment, when instead of slaves and animals began to use sails, one of the first in the history of mankind mechanical drive was born. The wind rotated the design of several panels fixed on the needles of a giant wheel. And she led to the upper railway. No gear, and, therefore, power losses: the proto-rotor worked at any direction of the wind. A similar scheme has met in Persia. Only there, soft sails were replaced with rigid wooden blades, the whole design pulled out height, and the structure was supplemented with walls for the direction of the wind. Such a mill was somewhat more productive, but, unfortunately, she worked only at a certain direction and strength of the wind. And it is appropriate to remember that at the same time a water wheel already existed at the same time, but it was first not used for grinding, but only for water lifting with artificial irrigation into agriculture. In order for the strength of the water to bring in the movement of the millstone, it was necessary to have an invention of the angular transmission, which allowed to rotate the working shaft at a right angle. Such difficulties were inevitable for the fact that neither put the millstone on the edge nor lay the wheel given by the force of falling water, no horizontally managed. And as soon as the task of turning efforts coped, the water wheels began to rotate the millstone. In the period of late antiquity, such structures were quite well worked. Water mills spread widely in Europe and safely survived the collapse of the Roman Empire continued to be used in the Middle Ages. Somewhere in the south of Europe at the beginning of the second millennium, our era first "crossed" the drive of a water mill with a windmill, creating the very sample that existed since the beginning of the XII century until the beginning of the century XX.

Despite the seeming simplicity of the design and solid prescription of the invention, the pyramid of knowledge and technologies, on the top of which the first mechanical mill with a wind drive was already quite large. There were knowledge about the processing of metals, without which it is impossible to make tools to work with a tree, and the wheel, as well as its derivative - another primitive, but already working transmission from pith and launches, and ceramics, aerodynamics (so far at the level of experiments and gueades , BUT ...) And even knowledge of weather and prevailing winds, i.e., the primitives of meteorology. The first wind mills belonged to the tower and did not have a windmill turn mechanism. The windmill itself was a soft design of oblique sails stretched on the spokes of Wheel-Ri. Later sails changed to blades. The house-tower along with millstones, mechanisms, windmill and miller (as in the picture of Jan Bruegel's senior) began to turn to the wind. It is possible that in the folk folklore in the form of a "hut, which turns back to the forest, to me before" it was exactly such a mill. The gantry construction, which relied the mill, to be called differently than the "chicken leg" is simply impossible. In Russia, such a mill was called a pillaby, or a German mill. Over time, the pillaby was changed to the device for turning only the tent with a windmill. In this case, the turn on the wind was made much easier. The stationary tower began to make a more durable - stone or brick, which increased the service life and resistance to the effects of the element. Mills, gradually improving, regularly molts, sawed, pushes and pereted until the beginning of the 20th century. Only in Germany in 1910, there were 22,000 wind turbines in 1910, by 1938 they remained only 4500. After the second world windmills were practically not used. Alexander Ivanov

Water wheel - the first mechanical drive in the history of mankind. Water on a special chute is supplied to the wheel of the overall and its weight causes it to rotate. Such wheels were used in the mining industry as a leader and lifting drive. At water consumption of approximately 50 l / s. The wheel develops to 1.3 kW of power. The first wheels appeared in Mesopotamia 3000 years ago and were used for irrigation. Two millennia ago, they began to apply them on in water mills. One of the earliest types of mills. The rotor (rotating part) of the windmill is located on the vertextal axis and its shaft is directly connected to the top elastic. Windowing walls guide the air flow at half the windmill, and make it rotate. Such mills are known from the VII century to our era and for the first time, perhaps appeared in Persia. Layout from the German Museum (model on a scale of 1:20. Inv No. 79235) reproduces the Persian mill of the XVIII century. Tower mill. Although the layout in the German museum (scale 1:20. Inv. No. 79227) repeats the mill from the island of Crete 1850 buildings, mills with windmill, equipped with sails appeared in the Mediterranean region at the beginning of the first millennium of our era. The complex spatial design of the windmill with spokes-solutions on which sails are fixed. Rope stretch marks perceive the axial wind load and make the entire design simple and reliable. Jan Bruegel Senior. Road after flooding, 1614
However, the idea of \u200b\u200badapting to work the wind energy did not die. In 2012, the wind turret of all over the world has developed 430 terravatt-hours (2.5% of the entire electrical energy produced by humanity). Their total power reaches 283 gigavats, which is about ¾ of the power of all nuclear power plants of the planet. In Denmark, for example, a third of all electricity is produced by windmills, and Germany intends to bring up to 20% of total energy consumption by 2020, and by 2030 - up to half of the total.

Using water stream energy. Many centuries ago, windmills are usually used to grind grain, as a drive for a water pump or to perform both tasks. Most modern windmills have the form of wind turbines and are used to generate electricity; Wind pumps are used to pump water, lands drying or pumping groundwater.

Windmills in antiquity

The windmill of Greek engineer Gerona Alexandria, invented in the first century of our era, is the earliest example of using wind energy to bring in the movement of the mechanism. Forward an example of an ancient wind drive is a prayer wheel used in Tibet and China at the beginning of the 4th century. There is also information that in the Babylonian Empire Hammurapi planned the use of wind energy for its ambitious irrigation project.

Horizontal windmills

The first wind mills running in the work had sails (blades) rotating in the horizontal plane, around the vertical axis. According to Ahmad Al-Hassan, windmills were invented in Eastern Persia, Persian geographer of the Estacchiri in the ninth century. The authenticity of the earlier invention of the windmill with the second Caliph Umar (within 634 - 644 AD) is questioned on the basis that information about wind mills appear only in the documents dated with the tenth century.

The mills of that time had from six to twelve blades covered with reed or tissue material. These adaptations were used to grind the grain or producing water, and were quite different from later European vertical windmills. Initially, windmills were widespread in the Middle East and Central Asia, and then gradually became popular in China and India.

A similar type of horizontal windmill with rectangular blades used for irrigation can also be found in the thirteenth century in China (during the board of Jin's dynasty in the north), open and brought to Turkestan Traveler Eloy Chuzhai in 1219.

Horizontal windmills in small quantities were present in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. The most famous, from those preserved to the present day, are the Hooper Mill in the County of Kent and the Fowler Mill in Butters in the vicinity of London. Most likely, the mills that existed in Europe were in those days were an independent invention of European engineers of the industrial revolution; The design of European mills was not borrowed from Eastern countries.

Vertical windmills

Regarding the origin of the vertical windmills, the debate of historians continues until now. Due to the lack of reliable information, it is impossible to answer the question of whether the vertical mills of the original invention of European masters or the design is borrowed from Middle Eastern countries.

The existence of the first famous mill in Europe (it is assumed that it was vertical type) dates back to 1185; She was located in the former village seen in Yorkshire at the mouth of the river Humbber. In addition, there are a number of less reliable historical sources, according to which the first windmills in Europe appeared in the 12th century. The first appointment of windmills was the grinding of grain crops.

Goat mill

There are data according to which the earliest type of European windmills was called POST MILL, named so because of the large vertical part, which constitutes the main design of the mill.

When mounting the mill body, it was able to rotate in the direction of the wind; This allowed to work more productively in North-Western Europe, where the direction of the wind varies with short intervals. The bases of the first gantry mills were knocked in the ground, which provided an additional support when turning. Later, a wooden support was developed by the name of the overpass (either goat). It was usually closed, which gave an extra room for storing the harvest and ensured protection during adverse weather conditions.

This type of windmill was the most common in Europe until the nineteenth century, until the powerful tower mills replaced them.

Hollow (empty) goat mill

The mills of this design had a cavity inside which the drive shaft was placed. This gave the opportunity to turn the construction in the direction of the wind to make less effort than in traditional gantry mills, and there was also no need to raise grain bags to a highly located millstone, since the use of a long drive shaft made it possible to place millstones at the ground level. Such mills were used in the Netherlands since the 14th century.

Tower mill

By the end of the 13th century, a new type of mill design was commissioned, a tower mill. Its main advantage was that only the upper part of the design was given in motion, while the bulk of the mill remained fixed.
The widespread tower mills came from the beginning of the economy strengthening period, due to the need to have reliable energy sources. Farmers and Melnikov did not even embarrassed even the highest value of the construction compared with other types of mills.
Unlike a gantry mill, in the tower mill, only the roof of the Tower reacted to the presence of wind, this made it possible to make the basic design much higher, which, in turn, made it possible to produce larger blades, due to which the rotation of the mill was possible even in conditions of weak windiness.

The upper part of the mill could turn in the direction of wind movement due to the presence of winches. In addition, there was an opportunity to hold the roof of the mill and blades towards the wind due to the presence of a small windmill installed at a right angle in relation to the blades in the back of the windmill. This type of construction was distributed on the territory of the former British Empire, Denmark and Germany. On the territory located at a short distance from the Mediterranean Sea, the tower mills were erected with fixed roofs, since the change in the wind direction most of the time was very insignificant.

Tent mill

The tent mill is an advanced version of the tower mill, where the stone tower is replaced by a wooden frame of a common octagonal shape (there are mills with a large or smaller number of angles). The frame was covered with straw, slate, sheet metal or a tone. Lower design, compared to the turmoil mills, made a windmill more practical, allowing to build a structure in areas with unstable soil. Initially, this type of mills was used as a drain mill, but later the scope of use was significantly expanded.

When erecting the mill in the built-up areas, it was usually placed on the base of masonry, which made it possible to raise the design over the surrounding buildings for better wind access.

Mechanical device Melnitz

Blades (sails)

Traditionally, the sail consists of a frame-lattice on which the canas is located. Melnik can independently adjust the amount of tissue depending on the strength of the wind and the required power. In the Middle Ages, the blades were the grille on which the canas was located, while in the cold climatic climates was replaced by wooden planks, which prevented freezing. Regardless of the device blades, to adjust the sails it was necessary to completely stop the mill.

The turning point was the invention in the UK at the end of the eighteenth century design, which automatically adapts to the wind speed without the melon intervention. Sails invented by William Kabitt in 1807 are most popular and functional steel. In these blades, the fabric was replaced by the mechanism of the connected shutters.

In France, Pierre-Teof Burton invented a system consisting of longitudinal wooden plates connected with the help of a mechanism that allowed the Melnik to open them during the rotation of the mill.

In the twentieth century, thanks to the successes in aircraft, the level of knowledge in the field of aerodynamics significantly increased, which led to a further increase in the efficiency of the mills by the German engineer Bilau and Dutch masters.

Most windmills have four sails. Along with them there are mills equipped with five, six or eight sails. They received the greatest distribution in the UK (especially in the counties of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire), Germany, and less often in other countries. The first plants for the production of canvas for mills were located in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria and Russia.

The mill with an even number of sails has an advantage over other types of mills, because when the damage to one of the blades occurs, it is possible to remove the blade opposite to it, thereby keeping balancing the entire design.

In the Netherlands, while the wind blades are in a fixed state, they are used to transmit signals. A small slope of the sails towards the main building symbolizes a joyful event; While the slope in the opposite side of the side symbolizes sorrow. Windmills across the Netherlands, were placed in the position of mourning in memory of the Dutch victims of the Malaysian Boeing Plane crash in 2014.

Mill mechanism

Gears inside the mill transmit energy from the rotational movement of sails to mechanical devices. Sails are fixed on horizontal shafts. Shafts can be fully made of wood, wood with metal elements or entire metal. The brake wheel is installed on the shaft between the front and rear bearings.

The mills were used to implement many industrial processes, for example, for processing oilseeds, wool, painting products and the manufacture of stone products.

Spread of mills

The total number of windmills in Europe, according to experts, reached the amount of about 200,000 during the greatest distribution of this type of devices, this figure is rather modest compared to about 500,000, which existed at the same time. Windmills were distributed in those regions where there was too little water, where the rivers were frozen in winter and in the plain regions, where the flow of rivers were too slow to ensure the required power for the operation of water mills.

With the advent of the industrial revolution, the importance of wind and water as the main industrial energy sources decreased; Ultimately, a large number of windmills and water wheels was replaced with steam mills and mills equipped with internal combustion engines. At the same time, windmills still remained quite popular, they were continued to build until the end of the 19th century.

Nowadays, wind mills are often protected structures, as their historical value was recognized. In some cases, the old mills exist as static exhibits (when the ancient cars are too fragile to bring them in motion), in other cases, as fully working exhibits.

Of the 10,000 windmills used in the Netherlands in the 1850s, about 1000 mills are still in working condition. Most windmills are currently serviced by volunteers, although some militants still work on a commercial basis. Many of the drainage mills exist as a backup mechanism for modern pumping stations. The region Zaan in Holland was the first industrial region of the world in which by the end of the 18th century there were about 600 windmills. Economic fluctuations and the industrial revolution had a much greater influence on windmills than other sources of energy, it led to the fact that only a few of them managed to keep up to this day.

The construction of the mills was distributed in the territory of the Cape Colony in South Africa in the 17th century. But the first tower mills did not survive storms on the Cape of the Peninsula, so in 1717 it was decided to build a more durable mill. Masters, specially sent by the Dutch East India Company completed construction by 1718. At the beginning of the 1860s, Cape Town boasts 11 mills.

Wind turbines

The wind turbine is essentially a windmill, the structure of which is specially designed to generate electricity. It can be viewed as the next step in the development of a windmill. The first wind turbines were built at the end of the nineteenth century by Professor James in Scotland in Scotland (1887), Charles F. Brother in Cleveland, Ohio (1887-1888) and the Paul Kurome in Denmark (1890s). Since 1896, the field of Paul Paul Kura has performed the functions of the electric generator in the village of Askov. By 1908, there were 72 wind power generator in Denmark, with a capacity of 5 to 25 kW. By the 1930s, wind mills were widely distributed on farms in the United States, where they were used to generate electricity, due to the fact that the transmission and distribution systems were not yet established.

The modern wind power industry began in 1979 from the launch of serial production of wind turbines by Danish manufacturers Kuriant, Vestas, Nordtank and Bonus. The first turbines were small for today's standards, with a capacity of 20-30 kW each. Since then, the commercial production turbines have been significantly increased in size; The ENERCON E-126 turbine is able to provide an admission to 7 MW of Energy.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, there is an increase in the concern of the population about the energy security, global warming and the depletion of fossil fuels. All this eventually led to an increase in interest in all sorts of types of renewable energy and strengthened interest in wind turbines.

Wind pumps

Wind pumps were used to pump water in the territory of modern Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan starting from the 9th century. The use of wind pumps was widespread in the entire Muslim world, and then spread to the territory of modern China and India. Wind pumps were used in Europe, especially in the Netherlands and the regions of the Eastern England of Great Britain, ranging from the Middle Ages and further, with the drainage of land for agricultural work or for construction purposes.

The American wind pump or wind turbine, was invented by Daniel Haladem in 1854 and was used mainly to raise water from wells. Larger versions of the wind pump were also used for tasks such as sawing wood, male grinding, peeling and grain grinding. In California and some other states, the wind pump was part of the autonomous system for the extraction of household water, which also included a handheld well and a wooden water tower. At the end of the 19th century, steel blades and towers replaced outdated wooden structures. At the peak of its development in 1930, according to experts, about 600,000 wind pumps were in use. American companies such as Pump Company, Feed Mill Company, Challenge Wind Mill, Appleton Manufacturing Company, Eclipse, Star, Aermotor and Fairbanks-Morse, were engaged in the production of wind pumps, the Appleton Manufacturing Company, Eclipse, Star, Aermotor and Fairbanks-Morse, with time.

Wind pumps are widely used on farms and ranches in the United States, Canada, South Africa and Australia today. They have a large number of blades, which allows them to rotate with a greater speed with a weak wind and slow down the movement to the required level with strong wind. Such mills raise water for the needs of feed plants, sawmills and agricultural machinery.

In Australia, Griffiths Brothers engaged in the manufacture of windmills called "Southern Cross Windmills" since 1903. Nowadays, they have become an indispensable part of the Australian rural sector through the use of the water of the Greater Artesian basin.

Windmills in different countries

Windmills of Holland

In 1738 - 40 in the Dutch town of Kinderdiek, 19 stone windmills were built to protect the lowland from flooding. Windmills pumped water from the territory below the sea level in the Lek River, which flows into the North Sea. In addition to pumping water, windmills were used to generate electricity. Thanks to these mills, Kinderdiek in 1886 became the first electrified city in the Netherlands.

Today, water from the mark below the sea level in the Kinderdeyke is pumped by modern pumping stations, and windmills in 1997 were listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Today's publication is dedicated History of the invention mills - Devices that use not muscle energy of human or animals, but energy of the forces of nature: water and wind.

Water mills

First were water mills were invented. They had the conversion of water stream energy into rotation energy. This simplest device consisted of the main, two latch wheels and a working body - two millstones: moving and stationary. The first mills appeared on mountain rivers and quickly spread everywhere, where you can create a water drop.
In the XI-XII centuries, the grinding on the manual mills was universally discontinued. Water mills at that time were put not only on rivers: Mills were built on the territory of modern Iraq, the mills were built in the mouths of the canals that were supplied by water at the expense of tides. They were driven by water retreating during the tide. In Mesopotamia, there were floating mills on the tigre. Moshul Mills hung on the iron chains in the middle of the river.

Initially, the main appointment of the mill was grinding grain. But in the XII century. The millstones were replaced by so-called fists designed to perform completely different work. In the simplest version on the main shaft of the mill, instead of the set-top wheel, a fist was rigidly fixed, managed by the worker. In the XII-XIII centuries, sufficient, iron and deform mill appeared.

The desire to increase the capacity forced to build hydraulic installations of large sizes. In France, Master R. Salem under the leadership of A. De Vilya, in 1682, the largest hydrosloval installation of 13 wheels, the diameter of which reached 8 m. The wheels installed on the Seine River were activated 235 pumps raising water to a height of 163 m. This system, which supplied water fountains of the Royal Parks in Versailles and Marley, received the name "Miracle Marley" from contemporaries.

The Russian inventor K. D. Frolov has achieved great success in the construction of hydraulic structures on the colony-resurrection mines. In the 70s of the XVIII century. In Altai, the development of silver ores occurring on deeper horizons began. The previously used water-gravy lifting machines, driven by manually or horse rod, could not provide water pumping and the rise of ore to the surface. To increase the number of produced ore, Frolov developed a project for the construction of a complex of wasting installations. After a long struggle with officials of the mining department, K. D. Frolov managed to make approval of his proposals. During 1783-1789. He introduced his project. It was the largest hydraulic structure of the XVIII century.

K. D. Frolov built a 17.5 m height dam, wide at a top of 14.5 m, at a base - 92 m, 128 m long, created the necessary water pressure.

Windmills

In Afghanistan windmills For the first time appeared in the IX century. The blades of the wind wheel were located in the vertical plane and were attached to the shaft, which opened the upper reel. Almost simultaneously with windmills were invented and regulating devices. They were needed, since the wings of the mill were associated with the rails almost directly and, therefore, the speed of his rotation was very dependent on the wind whims. In Afghanistan, all mills and waterproof wheels were driven by the dominant northern wind, therefore, they were focused only on him. At the mills were arranged hatches, which opened and closed to adjust the strength of the wind.

In Europe, windmills appeared in the XII century, mainly in those places where there was not enough rivers. In their design, they differed from the water mills only by the position of the propulsion and the main shaft.

Distinguish two types of windmills. In the first, when the direction of the wind is changed, the entire mill housing is rotated, in the second - only the head part.

It should be noted that windmills, which are an integral part of the landscape of Holland, are designed not for grinding grain, but for pumping water. Therefore, it can be noted that the invention made in Afghanistan helped to preserve the European country.

We offer you to watch a video about unusual mechanisms, for the work of which is interesting to observe.

The first tools for grinding grain in flour were stone mortar and pestle. Some step forward in comparison with them was the method of the grain of grain instead of the interpretation. People very soon made sure that with the flour in the flour, it turns out much better.

Stone mortar and pestles

However, it was also extremely tedious work. A large improvement was the transition from the movement of the grater forward and back to rotation. The pestle was replaced by a flat stone that was moving along a flat stone dish. From a stone that sorts the grain, it was already easy to go to the rail, that is, to make one stone slide when rotating differently. Grain grain was added to the hole in the middle of the top stone of the millstone, fell into the space between the upper and lower stones and was treated in flour.

Manual mill

This manual mill was widely distributed in ancient Greece and Rome. The design of it is very simple. The base of the mill served stone, convex in the middle. The top pin was located on his top. The second, the rotating stone had two bell-shaped recesses interconnected by hole. Outwardly, he resembled the hourglass and was empty inside. This stone was sitting on the base. The iron strip was inserted into the hole. When rotating the mill grain, falling between the stones, disappeared. Flour was collected at the base of the lower stone. Such mills were of various sizes: from small, like modern coffee grinding, up to large, which brought two slave or donkey into rotation.

With the invention of the manual mill, the grain grinding process was eased, but still remained time consuming and hard. It is not by chance that it was in a milling business that the first in history was operating without the use of the muscular power of a person or an animal. We are talking about a water mill. But first, the ancient masters had to invent the water engine.

The ancient water engine-engines developed, apparently, of chadfonic irrigation machines, with which they raised water from the river to irrigation of the coast. Cedongon was a series of scrapets that sat on the rim of a large wheel with a horizontal axis. When the wheel is rotated, the bottom scales plunged into the water of the river, then rose to the upper point of the wheel and tipped into the chute. First, such wheels rotated manually, but where there are few water, but it runs along the steep bed quickly, the wheel began to supply special blades. Under the pressure of the flow, the wheel rotated and screams itself. It turned out the simplest pump machine, which does not require the presence of a person for his work.

Reconstruction of the water mill (I century)

The invention of the water wheel was of great importance for the history of technology. For the first time, a person got at his disposal a reliable, universal and very simple engine in its manufacture. Soon it became obvious that the movement created by a water wheel can be used not only for swinging water, but also for other necessary, for example, for grinding grain. In the plain localities, the flow rate of the rivers is in order to rotate the wheel of the stream of the jet. To create the desired pressure, began to damage the river, artificially lift the water level and direct the jet on the groove on the blades of the wheel.

Water Mill

However, the invention of the engine immediately spawned another task: how to transfer the movement from the water wheel to the device that the work beneficial is useful for a person? For these purposes, a special transmission mechanism was needed, which could not only transmit, but also convert the rotational movement. Allowing this problem, the ancient mechanics appealed to the idea of \u200b\u200bthe wheel again. The simplest wheelbarrow works as follows. Imagine two wheels with parallel axes of rotation, which are tightly in contact with their rims. If now one of the wheels begins to rotate (it is called the lead), then thanks to the friction between the rims will begin to rotate both (slave). Moreover, the paths passing by dots lying on their rims are equal. This is true for all wheel diameters.

Therefore, a larger wheel will be done compared to the smaller associated with it in the same time less than the revolutions, how many times its diameter exceeds the diameter of the latter. If we divide the diameter of one wheel to the diameter of the other, then we obtain a number called the transfer ratio of this wheel transmission. Imagine the transmission of two wheels, in which the diameter of one wheel is twice as much as the diameter of the second. If the driven is a larger wheel, we can double the speed of movement using this transmission, but the torque will be reduced twice.

Such a combination of wheels will be convenient when it is important to get a large speed at the output than at the entrance. If, on the contrary, the slave will be a smaller wheel, we will lose at the exit in speed, but the torque of this transmission will double. This gear is convenient where you need to "strengthen movement" (for example, when lifting weights). Thus, using a system of two wheels of different diameters, you can not only transmit, but also convert the movement. In real practice, the transfer wheels with a smooth rim are almost not used, since the clutch between them is not sufficiently rigid, and the wheels are slipped. This disadvantage can be eliminated if instead of smooth wheels use toothed.

The first wheel gears appeared about two thousand years ago, but they were widely widespread later. The fact is that the cutting of the teeth requires great accuracy. In order for the second to rotate the second to rotate the second to rotate evenly, without jerks and stops, the teeth must be given a special outline, in which the mutual movement of the wheels would have done as if they move each other without slip, then the teeth of one wheel will fall Fucking another. If the gap between the wheels of the wheels is too large, they will strike each other and quickly break down. If the gap is too small - the teeth are crashed into each other and crumble.

The calculation and manufacture of gears were a complex task for ancient mechanics, but they already appreciated their convenience. After all, various combinations of gear wheels, as well as their connection with some other gears gave tremendous opportunities to convert traffic.

Worm-gear

For example, after connecting the gear with a screw, a worm transmission was obtained transmitting rotation from one plane to another. Using the conical wheels, you can transfer the rotation at any angle to the plane of the drive wheel. By connecting the wheel with a toothed line, you can convert the rotational movement to the translational, and vice versa, and connecting the connecting rod to the wheel, receive a reciprocating movement. To calculate the gears, the ratio does not take the wheels of the wheel diameters, but the ratio of the number of teeth of the leading and driven wheels. Often, several wheels are used in transmission. In this case, the transfer ratio of the entire transfer will be equal to the product of the transfer ratios of individual pairs.

Vitruvia Water Mill Reconstruction

When all the difficulties associated with obtaining and transformation of the movement were safely overcome, a water mill appeared. For the first time, its detailed device is described by the ancient Roman mechanic and architect Vitruviem. The mill in the ancient era had three main components, interconnected into a single device: 1) Motor mechanism in the form of a vertical wheel with blades rotated by water; 2) transmitting mechanism or transmission in the form of a second vertical gear; The second gear wheel rotated the third horizontal gear wheel - gear; 3) the actuator in the form of millstones, upper and lower, and the upper millstone was naked on the vertical shaft of the gears, with which it was driven. The grain was hushed out of the funnel-shaped bucket over the top mill.

Conical gear wheels

Cylindrical gear wheels with oblique teeth. Tooth gear line

The creation of a water mill is considered an important milestone in the history of technology. She became the first car that was used in production, a kind of vertex, which has reached an antique mechanic, and the initial point for technical searches for the mechanics of revival. Her invention was the first timid step towards engine production.

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