A windmill is a structure that converts wind power into rotational energy using vanes called sails or blades, by tradition specifically to mill grain (gristmills), but in some parts of the English-speaking world, the term has also been extended to encompass windpumps, wind turbines, and other applic Contact online >>
A windmill is a structure that converts wind power into rotational energy using vanes called sails or blades, by tradition specifically to mill grain (gristmills), but in some parts of the English-speaking world, the term has also been extended to encompass windpumps, wind turbines, and other applications. The term wind engine is also sometimes used to describe such devices.[1][failed verification]
Windmills were used throughout the high medieval and early modern periods; the horizontal or panemone windmill first appeared in Persia during the 9th century, and the vertical windmill first appeared in northwestern Europe in the 12th century.[2][3] Regarded as an icon of Dutch culture,[4] there are approximately 1,000 windmills in the Netherlands today.[5]
One of the earliest recorded working windmill designs found was invented sometime around 700–900 AD in Persia.[11][12] This design was the panemone, with vertical lightweight wooden sails attached by horizontal struts to a central vertical shaft. It was first built to pump water and subsequently modified to grind grain as well.[13][14]
Vertical-axle windmills were built, in small numbers, in Europe during the 18th and nineteenth centuries,[15] 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.[23]
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.[24]It is unclear whether the vertical windmill was influenced by the introduction of the horizontal windmill from Persia-Middle East to Southern Europe in the preceding century.[25][26]
In a hollow-post mill, the post on which the body is mounted is hollowed out, to accommodate the drive shaft.[31]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 since the early 15th century onwards.[32]
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.
Smock windmills were introduced by the Dutch in the 17th century to overcome the limitations of tower windmills, which were expensive to build and could not be erected on wet surfaces. The lower half of the smock windmill was made of brick, while the upper half was made of wood, with a sloping tower shape that added structural strength to the design. This made them lightweight and able to be erected on unstable ground.
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.[citation needed]
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.[41]
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