Niagara Falls 100.000-Hp. Development

16] Niagara Falls 1 00,000 Hp. Development The word “hydraucone” has been coined to express the shape which a jet of water takes upon striking any given surface and includes the form from the point where this stream be- gins to make its turn to the end of the curvature. Consequently a hydrau- cone regainer was used which is a chamber having a general form which the jet of water would take upon striking the impinging surface except that the capacity of the chamber is gradually greater in area in the di rection of flow than that required to just close the hydraucone. The ra- dially extending passage also affords a means of regaining for useful effect the whirl of the water as it leaves the runner at partial loads. It is not within the scope of this article to dis- cuss at length the hydraucone. This unit has now been in success- ful operation for a sufficient length of time to show that all of the new ele- ments embodied in its design are working as planned and that the com- plete unit is an unqualified success. FIGS. 18 AND 19-GOVERNOR MECHANISM FOR I. P. MORRIS AND ALLIS-CHALMERS WHEELS Structural and Equipment Features of New Niagara Plant Piers and Booms Used to Keep Ice Out of Canal— Trash Racks Run Entire Length of Forebay Ice Skimmer at Forebay Inlet By O. D. Dales Construction engineer Niagara Falls Power Company STATION No. 3 of the Hydraulic Power Co., is lo- cated below the falls at the lower end of the canal passing through the city. It takes water from the FIG 20—PLAN OF EXTENSION TO STATION NO. 3, NIAGARA FALLS POWER COMPANY canal through thirteen steel penstocks built outside the cliff—though now concealed from view by a face wall— and delivers it under 210 ft. head to thirteen horizontal turbines of 10,000 hp. capacity each. The canal was started in 1852 but was not put into operation until 1872. It has been enlarged from time to time up until 1912 when Station No. 3 was completed at which time it was 100 ft. wide and around 15 ft. deep and had an average flow of about 9000 sec.-ft. The 1918-20 extension to Station No. 3 was built immediately upstream of the 1906 plant. It consists of three 15i-ft. penstocks taking directly from the canal through a new forebay and passing through the limestone rock at a general slope of 45 deg. to the power house alongside the old power house just above the lower river level. Here are installed three vertical turbines of 37,500 hp. each, connected to generators of a capacity of 32,500 kva. each, generating 12,000 volt, three-phase 25- cycle current when operating at 150 r.p.m. The recent oper- ations comprised additional ice protection in the upper Niagara at the mouth of the canal, enlargement of the ca- nal, to pass the required 13,200 sec.-ft., construction of the forebay behind a coffer- dam holding back the canal, driving the penstock tunnels through rock, construction of the power house and erection of the hydraulic and electric machinery. The Niagara River, at the point where the company takes its water, is a