Water wheel inflow part optimization

Renewable energy is becoming more important for the future, so focus on its effective use is rising. Water energy is a significant part of renewable energy, but there are not many suitable places for dams in the Czech Republic anymore. Remains rivers with low hydro energetic potential, where only small hydro power plants could be built. In general, small power plants are expensive to build and economic returns are low. The waterwheel is inexpensive to produce and in historical documents it is defined as high efficiency water machine. It was widespread in the CZ in the 19th century. It could be efficiently applicable to small hydropower plants. In previous research, authors introduced a prototype of a waterwheel in which characteristics were measured in a laboratory environment. Based on the results it was designed an optimization of the input canal and this thesis focuses on further examination of the wheel characteristics. The measuring system had to be redesigned as various problems occurred during the measurement.Waterwheel, renewable energy, small hydro power plant, optimization, measurement, machine characteristics