The Falkirk Wheel- An Engineering Marvel

 Yesterday we had a guest lecture on ‘Overview of Fluid Mechanics’ by Dr. C. Sivaprakasagam, Prof.  & HOD of Kalasalingam University. He gave an overview of Fluid Mechanics and by the end; he showed us something interesting known as Falkirk Wheel. That is what I’m going to write.

The Falkirk wheel is a rotating boat lift mechanism. It connects Forth and Clyde Canal with Union Canal. It is nearby Glasgow, the Scottish Capital.

The thing is that the two canals are at a height difference of 35 m (one canal merges into the other canal like a waterfall). So, previously, people have to choose a roundabout way.

Engineers worked 10 years on this project and they finished by 2002…

What they designed is something amazing… They designed something known as Falkirk wheel… It consists of 11 locks through which the boat passes… Finally, it comes into a water tub (its called gondola)… At the same time, a boat on the lower part also comes into a similar structure at the base…

When two boats r fit into the gondola, the wheel is rotated by using, Gear mechanism with the help of engine… Now the boat on the lower part comes into the higher side and the boat on the upper side to the lower side…

It takes only 5 and half minutes for this whole thing to take place. The motor power is 22.5 KW.

The most amazing thing is Archimedes Principle plays an important role in this wheel… The gondolas on both the sides r filled with same amount of water… So, when a boat enters a gondola, the amount of water displaced will be equal to the mass of the boat…So the mass of the gondolas r equal, which means less power is required to rotate…

I’ll explain these things very clearly in the pictures below…

 A view of the Canal- One at 35 m height and the other below

A view of the Falkirk Wheel- The locks and the last two structures r the Gondolos

A picture indicating the mechanism... In this the wheel is in halfway

Wheel in its halfway

A view from the higher side

A closer look

The Gear Mechanism- A closer look

View at night... This has become a great tourist spot

A view of the locks at night

Interesting Thermodynamics

 Thermodynamics is considered to be one of the most difficult subjects…

But it has lot of interesting information, particularly about things dealing with our day today life…

We speak a lot about temperatures… “Today is a bit hotter”… “The temperature made me shiver yesterday”… “There is lot of humidity in air”… “The food inside refrigerator froze, due to cooler settings”… “Decrease the temperature of AC… It’s sweating inside here”…

Knowingly or unknowingly, whenever u say these sorts of things, u r speaking thermodynamics… It deals with all the things related with temperatures… Heating, cooling, humidifying, etc…

The main reason why we learn Thermodynamics is Human comfort….

We can’t survive at a temperature of 50 degree Celsius… Nor can we go out at 4 degree Celsius without wearing a woolen dress…

I read a few interesting things…

All of us know the principle of Refrigerator… It takes the heat from inside and gives it outside, so that the interior remains cool…

Now think of keeping a refrigerator in a fully isolated room… All the windows, doors r covered… No heat enters or leaves the room… Now let’s open the refrigerator’s door…

So, what happens is the coolness of the refrigerator is spread throughout the room and the room gets cooler… Right?

If u say it is right, u r wrong…  Friends, u should note one thing; the refrigerator absorbs heat from inside and gives outside… Initially, the coolness is spread… But then, the refrigerator starts to absorb heat from inside and gives it outside… Since, the room is insulated heat can’t be given out anywhere… Also, no machine is 100% efficient… Some heat is dissipated from the machine itself… So actually, the room gets hotter and not colder…

How does an Air Conditioner work? The same principle of a refrigerator, except that it absorbs the hotness of a whole room and gives it out, reducing the temperature of a room…

Consider u r in a room where the temperature is just 4 degree Celsius… U need to increase the temperature or u will freeze… All that u have is an AC… What will u do?

Simple… Reverse the AC… So that the AC absorbs heat from outside and gives it inside… It’s like cooling the outside…

We use fan inside a CPU to decrease the temperature… That is nothing but Thermodynamics again…

Even a small temperature rise can melt the glaciers, ice bergs and change the climatic cycles… Thermodynamics again…

There r lot of things interesting like this in Thermodynamics… We need to think about all those things… 

P.S: I took some of the above info from "thermodynamics" written by Cengel, Boles and the book is published by Tata McGraw Hill...

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