Windmill

A windmill is a structure that converts wind power into rotational energy by means of vanes called sails or blades, specifically to mill grain (gristmills), but the term is also extended to windpumps, wind turbines and other applications.[1] Windmills were used throughout the high medieval and early modern periods; the horizontal or panemone windmill first appeared in Greater Iran during the 9th century, the vertical windmill in northwestern Europe in the 12th century.[2][3]

For other uses, see Windmill (disambiguation).
Rijn en Zon windmill in Utrecht, Netherlands.
James Corwith Windmill, Watermill, New York

Forerunners
A 19th-century reconstruction of Heron's wind-powered organ description.

Hero of Alexandria (Heron) in first-century Roman Egypt described what appears to be a wind-driven wheel to power a machine.[4][5] His description of a wind-powered organ is not a practical windmill, but was either an early wind-powered toy, or a design concept for a wind-powered machine that may or may not have been a working device, as there is ambiguity in the text and issues with the design.[6] Another early example of a wind-driven wheel was the prayer wheel, which is believed to have been first used in Tibet and China, though there is uncertainty over the date of its first appearance, which could've been either circa 400, the 7th century,[7] or after the 9th century.[6]

Horizontal windmills
Main article: Panemone windmill
Further information: Vertical axis wind turbine
The Persian horizontal windmill, the first practical windmill.
Hooper's Mill, Margate, Kent, an eighteenth-century European horizontal windmill

The first practical windmills were panemone windmills, using sails that rotated in a horizontal plane, around a vertical axis. Made of six to 12 sails covered in reed matting or cloth material, these windmills were used to grind grain or draw up water.[8] These windmills are recorded by Persian geographer Estakhri in the 9th century as being operated in Khorasan (Eastern Iran and Western Afghanistan).[9][10] The authenticity of an earlier anecdote of a windmill involving the 7th-century caliph Umar (634–644) is questioned on the grounds that it is recorded only in the 10th century.[11] Such windmills were in widespread use across the Middle East and Central Asia, and later spread to Europe, China and India from there.[12] By the 11th century, the vertical-axle windmill had reached parts of Southern Europe, including the Iberian Peninsula (via Al-Andalus) and the Aegean Sea (in the Balkans).[13] A similar type of horizontal windmill with rectangular blades, used for irrigation, can also be found in thirteenth-century China (during the Jurchen Jin dynasty in the north), introduced by the travels of Yelü Chucai to Turkestan in 1219.[14]

Vertical-axle windmills were built, in small numbers, in Europe during the 18th and nineteenth centuries,[8] for example Fowler's Mill at Battersea in London, and Hooper's Mill at Margate in Kent. These early modern examples seem not to have been directly influenced by the vertical-axle windmills of the medieval period, but to have been independent inventions by 18th-century engineers.[15]

Vertical windmills

The horizontal-axis or vertical windmill (so called due to the plane of the movement of its sails) is a development of the 12th century, first used in northwestern Europe, in the triangle of northern France, eastern England and Flanders.[16] It is unclear whether the vertical windmill was influenced by the introduction of the horizontal windmill to Southern Europe in the preceding century.[17][18]

The earliest certain reference to a windmill in Northern Europe (assumed to have been of the vertical type) dates from 1185, in the former village of Weedley in Yorkshire which was located at the southern tip of the Wold overlooking the Humber Estuary.[19] A number of earlier, but less certainly dated, 12th-century European sources referring to windmills have also been found.[20] These earliest mills were used to grind cereals.[21]

Post mill
Main article: Post mill

The evidence at present is that the earliest type of European windmill was the post mill, so named because of the large upright post on which the mill's main structure (the "body" or "buck") is balanced. By mounting the body this way, the mill is able to rotate to face the wind direction; an essential requirement for windmills to operate economically in north-western Europe, where wind directions are variable. The body contains all the milling machinery. The first post mills were of the sunken type, where the post was buried in an earth mound to support it. Later, a wooden support was developed called the trestle. This was often covered over or surrounded by a roundhouse to protect the trestle from the weather and to provide storage space. This type of windmill was the most common in Europe until the 19th century, when more powerful tower and smock mills replaced them.[22]

Hollow-post mill

In a hollow-post mill, the post on which the body is mounted is hollowed out, to accommodate the drive shaft.[23] This makes it possible to drive machinery below or outside the body while still being able to rotate the body into the wind. Hollow-post mills driving scoop wheels were used in the Netherlands to drain wetlands from the 14th century onwards.[24]

Tower mill
Main article: Tower mill
Tower mills in Consuegra, Spain

By the end of the 13th century, the masonry tower mill, on which only the cap is rotated rather than the whole body of the mill, had been introduced. The spread of tower mills came with a growing economy that called for larger and more stable sources of power, though they were more expensive to build. In contrast to the post mill, only the cap of the tower mill needs to be turned into the wind, so the main structure can be made much taller, allowing the sails to be made longer, which enables them to provide useful work even in low winds. The cap can be turned into the wind either by winches or gearing inside the cap or from a winch on the tail pole outside the mill. A method of keeping the cap and sails into the wind automatically is by using a fantail, a small windmill mounted at right angles to the sails, at the rear of the windmill. These are also fitted to tail poles of post mills and are common in Great Britain and English-speaking countries of the former British Empire, Denmark, and Germany but rare in other places. Around some parts of the Mediterranean Sea, tower mills with fixed caps were built because the wind's direction varied little most of the time.

Smock mill
Main article: Smock mill
Two smock mills with a stage in Greetsiel, Germany

The smock mill is a later development of the tower mill, where the masonry tower is replaced by a wooden framework, called the "smock", which is thatched, boarded or covered by other materials, such as slate, sheet metal, or tar paper. The smock is commonly of octagonal plan, though there are examples with different numbers of sides. The lighter weight than tower mills make smock mills practical as drainage mills, which often had to be built in areas with unstable subsoil. Smock mills originated for drainage, but are also used for other purposes. When used in a built-up area it is often placed on a masonry base to raise it above the surrounding buildings.

Mechanics

Sails
Main article: Windmill sail
Windmill in Kuremaa, Estonia

Common sails consist of a lattice framework on which a sailcloth is spread. The miller can adjust the amount of cloth spread according to the wind and the power needed. In medieval mills, the sailcloth was wound in and out of a ladder type arrangement of sails. Later mill sails had a lattice framework over which the sailcloth was spread, while in colder climates, the cloth was replaced by wooden slats, which were easier to handle in freezing conditions.[25] The jib sail is commonly found in Mediterranean countries, and consists of a simple triangle of cloth wound round a spar.

In all cases, the mill needs to be stopped to adjust the sails. Inventions in Great Britain in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries led to sails that automatically adjust to the wind speed without the need for the miller to intervene, culminating in patent sails invented by William Cubitt in 1807. In these sails, the cloth is replaced by a mechanism of connected shutters.

In France, Pierre-Théophile Berton invented a system consisting of longitudinal wooden slats connected by a mechanism that lets the miller open them while the mill is turning. In the twentieth century, increased knowledge of aerodynamics from the development of the airplane led to further improvements in efficiency by German engineer Bilau and several Dutch millwrights. The majority of windmills have four sails. Multiple-sailed mills, with five, six or eight sails, were built in Great Britain (especially in and around the counties of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire), Germany, and less commonly elsewhere. Earlier multiple-sailed mills are found in Spain, Portugal, Greece, parts of Romania, Bulgaria, and Russia.[26] A mill with an even number of sails has the advantage of being able to run with a damaged sail by removing both the damaged sail and the one opposite, which does not unbalance the mill.

De Valk windmill in mourning position following the death of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands in 1962

In the Netherlands the stationary position of the sails, i.e. when the mill is not working, has long been used to give signals. If the blades are stopped in a "+" sign (3-6-9-12 o'clock), the windmill is open for business. When the blades are stopped in an "X" configuration, the windmill is closed or not functional. A slight tilt of the sails (top blade at 1 o'clock) signals joy, such as the birth of a healthy baby. A tilt of the blades to 11-2-5-8 o'clock signals mourning, or warning. It was used to signal the local region during Nazi operations in World War II, such as searches for Jews. Across the Netherlands, windmills were placed in mourning position in honor of the Dutch victims of the 2014 Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 shootdown.[27]

Machinery

Gears inside a windmill convey power from the rotary motion of the sails to a mechanical device. The sails are carried on the horizontal windshaft. Windshafts can be wholly made of wood, or wood with a cast iron poll end (where the sails are mounted) or entirely of cast iron. The brake wheel is fitted onto the windshaft between the front and rear bearing. It has the brake around the outside of the rim and teeth in the side of the rim which drive the horizontal gearwheel called wallower on the top end of the vertical upright shaft. In grist mills, the great spur wheel, lower down the upright shaft, drives one or more stone nuts on the shafts driving each millstone. Post mills sometimes have a head and/or tail wheel driving the stone nuts directly, instead of the spur gear arrangement. Additional gear wheels drive a sack hoist or other machinery. The machinery differs if the windmill is used for other applications than milling grain. A drainage mill uses another set of gear wheels on the bottom end of the upright shaft to drive a scoop wheel or Archimedes' screw. Sawmills use a crankshaft to provide a reciprocating motion to the saws. Windmills have been used to power many other industrial processes, including papermills, threshing mills, and to process oil seeds, wool, paints and stone products.[28]

  • An isometric drawing of the machinery of the Beebe Windmill
  • Diagram of the smock mill at Meopham, Kent
  • Cross section of a post mill
  • Windshaft, brake wheel, and brake blocks in smock mill d'Admiraal in Amsterdam
  • Interior view, Pantigo windmill, East Hampton, New York Historic American Buildings Survey
  • Technical drawing of a 1793 Dutch smock mill for land drainage
  • 1813 technical drawing

Spread and decline
A windmill in Wales, United Kingdom. 1815.
Don Quixote being struck by a windmill, illustration by Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré.
Oilmill De Zoeker, paintmill De Kat and paltrok sawmill De Gekroonde Poelenburg at the Zaanse Schans

In the 14th century windmills became popular in Europe; the total number of wind-powered mills is estimated to have been around 200,000 at the peak in 1850, which is modest compared to some 500,000 waterwheels.[25] Windmills were applied in regions where there was too little water, where rivers freeze in winter and in flat lands where the flow of the river was too slow to provide the required power.[25] With the coming of the industrial revolution, the importance of wind and water as primary industrial energy sources declined, and they were eventually replaced by steam (in steam mills) and internal combustion engines, although windmills continued to be built in large numbers until late in the nineteenth century. More recently, windmills have been preserved for their historic value, in some cases as static exhibits when the antique machinery is too fragile to put in motion, and in other cases as fully working mills.[29]

Of the 10,000 windmills in use in the Netherlands around 1850,[30] about 1,000 are still standing. Most of these are being run by volunteers, though some grist mills are still operating commercially. Many of the drainage mills have been appointed as backup to the modern pumping stations. The Zaan district has been said to have been the first industrialized region of the world with around 600 operating wind-powered industries by the end of the eighteenth century.[30] Economic fluctuations and the industrial revolution had a much greater impact on these industries than on grain and drainage mills, so only very few are left.

Construction of mills spread to the Cape Colony in the seventeenth century. The early tower mills did not survive the gales of the Cape Peninsula, so in 1717 the Heeren XVII sent carpenters, masons, and materials to construct a durable mill. The mill, completed in 1718, became known as the Oude Molen and was located between Pinelands Station and the Black River. Long since demolished, its name lives on as that of a Technical school in Pinelands. By 1863, Cape Town had 11 mills stretching from Paarden Eiland to Mowbray.[31]

Wind turbines
Main articles: Wind power and High-altitude wind power
A group of wind turbines in Zhangjiakou, Hebei, China

A wind turbine is a windmill-like structure specifically developed to generate electricity. They can be seen as the next step in the development of the windmill. The first wind turbines were built by the end of the nineteenth century by Prof James Blyth in Scotland (1887),[32] Charles F. Brush in Cleveland, Ohio (1887–1888)[33][34] and Poul la Cour in Denmark (1890s). La Cour's mill from 1896 later became the local powerplant of the village Askov. By 1908 there were 72 wind-driven electric generators in Denmark, ranging from 5 to 25 kW. By the 1930s, windmills were widely used to generate electricity on farms in the United States where distribution systems had not yet been installed, built by companies such as Jacobs Wind, Wincharger, Miller Airlite, Universal Aeroelectric, Paris-Dunn, Airline, and Winpower. The Dunlite Corporation produced turbines for similar locations in Australia.

Three wind turbines in a storm

Forerunners of modern horizontal-axis utility-scale wind generators were the WIME-3D in service in Balaklava USSR from 1931 until 1942, a 100-kW generator on a 30-m (100-ft) tower,[35] the Smith–Putnam wind turbine built in 1941 on the mountain known as Grandpa's Knob in Castleton, Vermont, United States of 1.25 MW[36] and the NASA wind turbines developed from 1974 through the mid-1980s. The development of these 13 experimental wind turbines pioneered many of the wind turbine design technologies in use today, including: steel tube towers, variable-speed generators, composite blade materials, and partial-span pitch control, as well as aerodynamic, structural, and acoustic engineering design capabilities. The modern wind power industry began in 1979 with the serial production of wind turbines by Danish manufacturers Kuriant, Vestas, Nordtank, and Bonus. These early turbines were small by today's standards, with capacities of 20–30 kW each. Since then, commercial turbines have increased greatly in size, with the Enercon E-126 capable of delivering up to 7 MW, while wind turbine production has expanded to many countries.

As the 21st century began, rising concerns over energy security, global warming, and eventual fossil fuel depletion led to an expansion of interest in all available forms of renewable energy. Worldwide, many thousands of wind turbines are now operating, with a total nameplate capacity of 591 GW as of 2018.[37]

Windpumps
Main article: Windpump
Aermotor-style windpump in South Dakota, USA

Windpumps were used to pump water since at least the 9th century in what is now Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan.[10] The use of wind pumps became widespread across the Muslim world and later spread to East Asia (China) and South Asia (India).[38] Windmills were later used extensively in Europe, particularly in the Netherlands and the East Anglia area of Great Britain, from the late Middle Ages onwards, to drain land for agricultural or building purposes.

The American windmill, or wind engine, was invented by Daniel Halladay in 1854[39] and was used mostly for lifting water from wells. Larger versions were also used for tasks such as sawing wood, chopping hay, and shelling and grinding grain.[40] In early California and some other states, the windmill was part of a self-contained domestic water system which included a hand-dug well and a wooden water tower supporting a redwood tank enclosed by wooden siding known as a tankhouse. During the late 19th century steel blades and steel towers replaced wooden construction. At their peak in 1930, an estimated 600,000 units were in use.[41] Firms such as U.S. Wind Engine and Pump Company, Challenge Wind Mill and Feed Mill Company, Appleton Manufacturing Company, Star, Eclipse, Fairbanks-Morse, Dempster Mill Manufacturing Company and Aermotor became the main suppliers in North and South America. These windpumps are used extensively on farms and ranches in the United States, Canada, Southern Africa, and Australia. They feature a large number of blades, so they turn slowly with considerable torque in low winds and are self-regulating in high winds. A tower-top gearbox and crankshaft convert the rotary motion into reciprocating strokes carried downward through a rod to the pump cylinder below. Such mills pumped water and powered feed mills, saw mills, and agricultural machinery.

In Australia, the Griffiths Brothers at Toowoomba manufactured windmills of the American pattern from 1876, with the trade name Southern Cross Windmills in use from 1903. These became an icon of the Australian rural sector by utilizing the water of the Great Artesian Basin.[42] Another well-known maker was Metters Ltd. of Adelaide, Perth and Sydney.

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See also

References
  1. "Windmill". Merriam-webster.com. 2012-08-31. Retrieved 2013-08-15. "a mill or machine operated by the wind usually acting on oblique vanes or sails that radiate from a horizontal shaft, especially: (a) wind-driven water pump or electric generator, (b) the wind-driven wheel of a windmill".
  2. Glick, Thomas F., Steven Livesey, and Faith Wallis. Medieval science, technology, and medicine: an encyclopedia. Routledge, 2014, 519
  3. Geography, Landscape and Mills – Pennsylvania State University
  4. Dietrich Lohrmann, "Von der östlichen zur westlichen Windmühle", Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, Vol. 77, Issue 1 (1995), pp. 1–30 (10f.)
  5. A.G. Drachmann, "Hero's Windmill", Centaurus, 7 (1961), pp. 145–151
  6. Shepherd, Dennis G. (December 1990). "Historical development of the windmill". NASA Contractor Report. Cornell University (4337). Bibcode:1990cuni.reptR....S. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.656.3199. doi:10.2172/6342767. hdl:2060/19910012312.
  7. Lucas, Adam (2006). Wind, Water, Work: Ancient and Medieval Milling Technology. Brill Publishers. p. 105. ISBN 90-04-14649-0.
  8. Wailes, R. Horizontal Windmills. London, Transactions of the Newcomen Society vol. XL 1967–68 pp 125–145
  9. Klaus Ferdinand, “The Horizontal Windmills of Western Afghanistan,” Folk 5, 1963, pp. 71–90.. Ahmad Y Hassan, Donald Routledge Hill (1986). Islamic Technology: An illustrated history, p. 54. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-42239-6.
  10. Lucas, Adam (2006), Wind, Water, Work: Ancient and Medieval Milling Technology, Brill Publishers, p. 65, ISBN 90-04-14649-0
  11. Dietrich Lohrmann, "Von der östlichen zur westlichen Windmühle", Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, Vol. 77, Issue 1 (1995), pp. 1–30 (8)
  12. Donald Routledge Hill, "Mechanical Engineering in the Medieval Near East", Scientific American, May 1991, p. 64–69. (cf. Donald Routledge Hill, Mechanical Engineering)
  13. "Asbads (windmill) of Iran". UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
  14. Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part 2, Mechanical Engineering. Taipei: Caves Books Ltd., p. 560.
  15. Hills, R L. Power from Wind: A History of Windmill Technology. Cambridge University Press 1993
  16. Braudel, Fernand (1992). Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Century, Vol. I: The Structure of Everyday Life. University of California Press. p. 358. ISBN 9780520081147.
  17. Farrokh, Kaveh (2007), Shadows in the Desert, Osprey Publishing, p. 280, ISBN 978-1-84603-108-3 Lynn White Jr. Medieval technology and social change (Oxford, 1962) p. 86 & p. 161–162. Bent Sorensen (November 1995), "History of, and Recent Progress in, Wind-Energy Utilization", Annual Review of Energy and the Environment, 20 (1): 387–424, doi:10.1146/annurev.eg.20.110195.002131
  18. Lucas, Adam (2006), Wind, Water, Work: Ancient and Medieval Milling Technology, Brill Publishers, pp. 106–7, ISBN 90-04-14649-0
  19. Laurence Turner, Roy Gregory (2009). Windmills of Yorkshire. Catrine, East Ayrshire: Stenlake Publishing. p. 2. ISBN 9781840334753.
  20. Lynn White Jr., Medieval technology and social change (Oxford, 1962) p. 87.
  21. Sathyajith, Mathew (2006). Wind Energy: Fundamentals, Resource Analysis and Economics. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. pp. 1–9. ISBN 978-3-540-30905-5.
  22. Hills, Power from wind: a history of windmill technology, (1996), 65
  23. Martin Watts (2006). Windmills. Osprey Publishing. p. 55. ISBN 978-0-7478-0653-0.
  24. Erich Hau (26 February 2013). Wind Turbines: Fundamentals, Technologies, Application, Economics. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 7–. ISBN 978-3-642-27151-9.
  25. "Wind powered factories: history (and future) of industrial windmills". Low-tech Magazine. 2009-10-08. Retrieved 2013-08-15.
  26. Wailes, Rex (1954), The English Windmill, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp. 99–104
  27. "In somber ceremony, Dutch receive the first remains of MH17 victims". Retrieved 24 July 2014.
  28. Gregory, R. The Industrial Windmill in Britain. Phillimore, 2005
  29. Victorian Farm, Episode 1. Directed and produced by Naomi Benson. BBC Television
  30. Endedijk, L and others. Molens, De Nieuwe Stockhuyzen. Wanders. 2007. ISBN 978-90-400-8785-1
  31. "Local Windmills". Mostertsmill.co.za. Archived from the original on 2013-08-08. Retrieved 2013-08-15.
  32. Shackleton, Jonathan. "World First for Scotland Gives Engineering Student a History Lesson". The Robert Gordon University. Archived from the original on 17 December 2008. Retrieved 20 November 2008.
  33. [Anon, 1890, 'Mr. Brush's Windmill Dynamo', Scientific American, vol 63 no. 25, 20th Dec, p. 54]
  34. History of Wind Energy in Cutler J. Cleveland,(ed) Encyclopedia of Energy Vol.6, Elsevier, ISBN 978-1-60119-433-6, 2007, pp. 421–422
  35. Erich Hau, Wind turbines: fundamentals, technologies, application, economics, Birkhäuser, 2006 ISBN 3-540-24240-6, page 32, with a photo
  36. The Return of Windpower to Grandpa's Knob and Rutland County Archived 2008-08-28 at the Wayback Machine, Noble Environmental Power, LLC, 12 November 2007. Retrieved from Noblepower.com website 10 January 2010. Comment: this is the real name for the mountain the turbine was built, in case you wondered.
  37. "Global Installed Capacity in 2018". GWEC. Retrieved 22 March 2019.
  38. Donald Routledge Hill, "Mechanical Engineering in the Medieval Near East", Scientific American, May 1991, pp. 64–69. (cf. Donald Routledge Hill, Mechanical Engineering)
  39. "fnal.gov". fnal.gov. Retrieved 2013-08-15.
  40. Clements, Elizabeth. "Historic Turns in The Windmill City". Ferimi News. Office of Science/US Dept of Energy. Retrieved 25 January 2015.
  41. Paul Gipe, Wind Energy Comes of Age, John Wiley and Sons, 1995 ISBN 0-471-10924-X, pages 123–127
  42. Bruce Millet, Triumph of the Griffiths Family (1984) (retrieved 10-12-2013)

Further reading
  • R. Gregory, The Industrial Windmill in Britain. Phillimore, 2005
  • Vowles, Hugh Pembroke: "An Enquiry into Origins of the Windmill", Journal of the Newcomen Society, Vol. 11 (1930–31)
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