The diagrams in the beginning of this video were helpful in understanding just how this wheel works; thank you for including something I haven't seen in other videos of the wheel.
I have just taken my parents up to see the wheel this week (Scotland rocks!!!) I would love to see Seattle some day - seen it so many times on TV!! Very high on my 'to do' list. Thanks for your comments.
today I received a Powerpoint presentation about this Falkirk Wheel, and I wanted to see it in action, to really understand what was going on. Your video was the best I could find, informative, peaceful music, and even I now understand how it works :-) I will send the PPS to my friends, including a link to this video. thanks. Patrice Holland
The water isn't pumped out at all - as the boat, or boats go in, they displace their own weight in water - Archimedes Principle. This means that both gondolas then weigh the same all the time, whether they have just water in, or one or two boats. They are then equally balanced, and so are very easy to move - it takes the energy required to boil 8 kettles to turn the wheel all the way up or down. I was there yesterday, very cool piece of engineering.
They are two separate canals - and I don't think they drain into each other elsewhere. They are connected by the Wheel at Camelon just outside Falkirk in the centre part of Scotland. The two canals are the Union Canal and the Forth and Clyde Canal
Thanks for your kind words. The wheel is more spectacular in life and it turns slower than it appears on the video. I had to speed it up to fit the song; "Concerning Hobbits" from the soundtrack of the 2001 film: The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring. The song is available on iTunes.
Thanks for your comment. The song is from the soundtrack off the 2001 movie; The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring. "Concerning Hobbits" is a piece by composer Howard Shore. Available on iTunes.
It replaces a flight of canal locks. One Canal is at a higher level than the other, which it connects to. In order to connect the canals they built this wheel rather than a set of locks.
i went there last thursday, it took 4 minutes to rotate, and my bro said ''lets count the bolts, 1 2 3..dam can we start again?'' the tunnel was frikkin long and i almost fell asleep in it! lawl..i also saw signits ( baby swans ) while coming out over the bridge, i got a vid of em :D
I live in Falkirk, thought the wheel was cool at first, but nothing spectacular, mind you i got my wedding photo's taken there in August, and the photo's turned out quite good.
@EMSLS I can think of 2 reasons. The 1st is only asthetic. Wouldn't look as nice if the top portion dumped a load of water when it started to move. The 2nd, and far more important would be a method by which the gate system is checked for proper closure and /or leakage prior to the wheel beginning it's rotation. A failure of a door or seal could result in damage to the boat or in a worst case senario where the door completely fails, the boat could exit during revolution.
The vid doesn't do it any justice; you should see it in person. AND! I had speed up the video, so needless to say the wheel turns 5X slower than in the in the video - thanks for your comments!
Cool! I received a copy of the PowerPoint presentation also, which gives a lot of info, and figured there had to be a YT video. I wonder how much pressure is on the "wall" on the upper segment at the end of the canal?
If you don't pump the water from between the gates, then it simply spills out when the wheel starts to move. I guess this isn't a problem, but it wouldn't look as nicely engineered as it does if that happened. In actual fact, they only need remove the water from between the gates at the top, so it may be more appropriate to say that they drain the water.
Great piece of engineering, your dad must very satisfied to have worked on a project like this? I know I would have been! So, did my clip do the Wheel any justice?
Two questions only! First, what's the name of the music(if it's from a band, could you tell me the name? I would be very thankful!)? Second, Why the water has to be pumpped out before it starts to go around?
Sorry for the way I've exposed the question. The question I wanted to be answered in a better way is something like this "Why is the water between the two door's pumped before it starts going around?" The other part that you have aswered I allready knew, but thanks anyways...
That's what you think all the way up to that point you get some of your property leeched upon by someone who thought they had the right to screw your rights over.
