Jenkins' Bellefonte Turbine

Jenkins Turbine, Patent no. 190,595

So I am reading the Second Pennsylvania Geological Report for Centre Co. from 1884 (as one does...), and in describing the operations of Eagle (Curtain) Furnace north of Milesburg (which they strangely call Pleasant Furnace, but which is now restored and run in the summer by PHMC), it says of it's operations:

The forge has 8 heating fires, using about 90 bushels charcoal to the ton [of iron]. An old wooden undershot water-wheel furnished power for hammer, soon to be replaced by a Jenkins (Bellefonte) turbine wheel.  Product chiefly for boiler plate. [p. 261]

Other than finding it interesting that the furnace had 8 hearths in a hammer mill, which I had never realized (not sure that that part of the ironworks has been restored), but when I read the comment about the turbine that was about to be installed, and my first thought was, "there's a patent turbine from Bellefonte?!?"  Indeed there is!  Read on.

In 1877, William R. Jenkins, Jr. of Bellefonte received a patent for "Improvements in Turbine Water Wheels" (U.S. Patent no. 190,595) wherein he claimed a simple and durable invention of the type that took horizontal (tangential) water flow and channeled it downward along the wheel's perimeter to derive torque.  This style vied for primacy with the type that took water in vertically at the top and channeled it out radially at the bottom to derive torque, though both are types of reaction turbines (I need to look into this distinction some more; the canonical type of reaction turbine for low-head applications is the Francis turbine from 1848, and Jenkins's seems a variation on that idea).

Jenkins' inverted-cone form of the turbine tried to combine light-weight manufacture (hence the empty hollow cone above), water striking the blades perpendicularly in order to deliver the greatest force, and blade shapes that let the water slightly lift the turbine, thereby reducing friction on the lower bearing.  Jenkins claimed that this would derive the maximum power from the water.

A decade after Jenkins patented the turbine, the Eagle Iron Works was interested in installing one, so he clearly had some success with the design.  Since, though, the iron works was only about 6 miles from Bellefonte, that might not be too surprising.  The advertisement below, however, from The Roller Mill, vol. 12 (July 1893), shows that Jenkins saw some success in his venture.

More to come on Jenkins & Lingle shortly...