A NEW SELF-REGULATING WIND WHEEL.
Wind Wheel, Shilling 1896: Windmill, governor Scientific American, August 29, 1896, page 184
The wind wheel shown in the illustration is designed to quickly adapt itself to the variations of force and direction of the wind, and maintain a practically even speed and power under great changes in wind velocity. It has been patented by John T. Shilling, of Fisher's, N. Y.
Fig. 1 is a front view of the wheel, portions being broken away to show its construction, and Fig. 2 a horizontal section. The upper end of the central shaft is braced by guy lines and cross arms, and rotating on this shaft is a tubular shaft whose lower end rotates on ball bearings and has an annular beveled gear by means of which the power of the wheel may be utilized by means of another similar gear on a horizontal shaft. Upon the tubular shaft are upper and lower disks between which are held sails, blades, and supplemental blades, attached to vertical rods, and all of canvas or other flexible material. Rotating upon the tubular shaft, and having a bearing upon the central shaft, is an auxiliary frame carrying bars which extend beyond the circumference of the wheel, as shown in Fig. 2, and support a vane.
On the opposite end of this frame, supported by stay rods and horizontally curved bars, are held damper curtains adapted to be automatically moved toward and from each other, to more or less restrict the opening for the passage of wind to the wheel. The rear edges of the curtains are attached to spring rollers and their adjacent free edges to ropes which extend over pulley and down a hollow standard to connections with a drum below, mounted loosely on the tubular shaft. There are pivoted weighted arms on this drum, and. as they swing outward with the increased velocity of the wind. the drum is drawn into frictional contact with a collar, and is rotated to pull upon the ropes and draw the damper curtains toward each other, thus cutting off some of the wind from the wheel, the spring rollers separating the curtains more or less as the frictional contact of the drum with the collar is reduced, whereby the speed of the wind wheel will be kept practically uniform.
Windmill, governor
Scientific American, August 29, 1896, page 184