I’m thinking of things like waterwheels, windmills, millstones, etc- these systems would presumably have a lot of force running through them, such that stopping them for maintenance or replacement would seem difficult to do and maybe even damage the system. So what kind of mechanisms back in the day did people put in place to stop energy from moving through the machine at a given point? How do you successfully get two gears that are actively engaged to be safely uncoupled, for lack of a better word?
In: Engineering
There’s two different mechanisms you can use:
First, simply cut power. For waterwheels you can dam up or divert the water flow around the wheel and it will naturally stop spinning on it’s own. For modern windmills, we can adjust the pitch angle on the blades so that they won’t produce any torque when the wind passes over them. Once the wheel or turbine is disengaged it is usually brought to a full stop and held in place with some form of braking mechanism.
Second, use a clutch. A clutch is a mechanical device that connects two rotating shafts using friction plates. It can be engaged and disengaged even while one of the shafts is still rotating. Attaching a clutch to the drive shaft of a waterwheel or a windmill allows you to decouple the machinery that’s normally attached to it. This allows the wheel to spin freely while the internal machinery comes to a stop. It can then be reengaged to resume delivering power to the machinery.
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