Lester Allan Pelton (September 5, 1829 – March 14, 1908), created the most efficient form of impulse water turbine.
He was born in Vermilion, Ohio and in 1850 immigrated to Camptonville, California during the gold rush. Pelton made his living as a carpenter and a millwright.
The Pelton wheel improved upon the earlier Knight Wheel, developed by Samuel N. Knight of the Knight Foundry. This type of turbine introduced an entirely new physical concept...
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Lester Allan Pelton (September 5, 1829 – March 14, 1908), created the most efficient form of impulse water turbine.
He was born in Vermilion, Ohio and in 1850 immigrated to Camptonville, California during the gold rush. Pelton made his living as a carpenter and a millwright.
The Pelton wheel improved upon the earlier Knight Wheel, developed by Samuel N. Knight of the Knight Foundry. This type of turbine introduced an entirely new physical concept (impulse as opposed to reaction), and revolutionized turbines adapted for high head sites. Up until this time, all water turbines were reaction machines that were powered by water pressure. Pelton's invention was powered by the kinetic energy of a high velocity water jet.
According to a 1939 article by W. F. Durand of Stanford University in Mechanical Engineering:
Pelton's invention started from an accidental observation, some time in the 1870s. Pelton was watching a spinning water turbine when the key holding its wheel onto its shaft slipped...
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