page_title: Pelton wheel
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Pelton wheel / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Drawings of Pelton water wheel (Pelton turbine)
context_page_description: A Pelton wheel is an impulse-type water turbine invented by Lester Allan Pelton in the 1870s. The Pelton wheel extracts energy from the impulse of moving water, as opposed to water's dead weight like the traditional overshot water wheel. Many earlier variations of impulse turbines existed, but they were less efficient than Pelton's design. Water leaving those wheels typically still had high speed, carrying away much of the dynamic energy brought to the wheels. Pelton's paddle geometry was designed so that when the rim ran at half the speed of the water jet, the water left the wheel with very little speed; thus his design extracted almost all of the water's impulse energy—which allowed for a very efficient turbine.
context_section_description: Lester Allan Pelton was born in Vermillion, Ohio in 1829. In 1850, he travelled overland to take part in the California Gold Rush. Pelton worked by selling fish he caught in the Sacramento River. In 1860, he moved to Camptonville, a center of placer mining activity. At this time many mining operations were powered by steam engines which consumed vast amounts of wood as their fuel. Some water wheels were used in the larger rivers, but they were ineffective in the smaller streams that were found near the mines. Pelton worked on a design for a water wheel that would work with the relatively small flow found in these streams.
  By the mid 1870s, Pelton had developed a wooden prototype of his new wheel. In 1876, he approached the Miners Foundry in Nevada City, California to build the first commercial models in iron. The first Pelton Wheel was installed at the Mayflower Mine in Nevada City in 1878. The efficiency advantages of Pelton's invention were quickly recognized and his product was soon in high demand. He patented his invention on 26 October 1880. By the mid-1880s, the Miners Foundry could not meet the demand, and in 1888, Pelton sold the rights to his name and the patents to his invention to the Pelton Water Wheel Company in San Francisco. The company established a factory at  121/123 Main Street in San Francisco.
  The Pelton Water Wheel Company manufactured a large number of Pelton Wheels in San Francisco which were shipped around the world.  In 1892, the Company added a branch on the east coast at 143 Liberty Street in New York City. By 1900, over 11,000 turbines were in use. In 1914, the company moved manufacturing to new, larger premises at 612 Alabama Street in San Francisco. In 1956, the company was acquired by the Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Company, which ended manufacture of Pelton Wheels.
  In New Zealand, A & G Price in Thames, New Zealand produced Pelton waterwheels for the local market. One of these is on outdoor display at the Thames Goldmine Experience.
caption: Figure from Lester Allan Pelton's original October 1880 patent
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