User:AntiCompositeNumber/Lowell Canal System/notes
- ASCE; ASME (1985-07-01). "Lowell Water Power System" (PDF).
- Proprietors of Locks and Canals on the Merrimack River incorporated in 1792
- PL&C began work on Pawtucket Canal in 1792
- Pawtucket Canal completed in 1796
- Pawtucket Canal used for transportation to bypass Pawtucket Falls
- ~1803 Pawtucket Canal traffic decreased with decrease in Newburyport timber demand
- Competed with Middlesex Canal, which connected Merrimack R. to Boston
- 1821 Boston Associates purchase controlling stock in PL&C
- 1822 Merrimack Manufacturing Company opens
- 1822 Pawtucket Canal begins to feed power canal system
- 1826 Two new canals built with plans for 4 more
- 1836 Planned system complete
- Two levels of power
- 1837 James B. Francis becomes chief engineer
- First Pawtucket Dam was "crude wooden structure"
- c. 1830 "Masonry dam seated on heavy wooden cribbing"
- 1833 "Two more courses of granite headers" and wooden flashboards added to dam
- 1840s water shortages, excess flows common (not at same time)
- Excess flow decreases efficiency of mills
- Increased current in canals decreases head
- JBF proposes Northern Canal
- Would require more control over river flow
- Would require lower flow through canals at night to store water
- Essex Company of Lawrence and PL&C partner to gain control over NH lakes
- 1847 Northern canal finished
- Northern canal "reversed the current in the Western Canal from the junction to the Swamp Locks Basin".
- 1848 Francis completes Moody Street Feeder
- Underground Boott Penstock transfers flow from Merriack Canal to end of Eastern Canal
- Northern canal cost $551,585
- Moody Street Feeder cost $86,132
- Boott Penstock and Western Canal work cost $15,000
- Previous system had capacity of 91 "mill power"
- Northern canal increased system to 139 mill power in all seasons
- Additional power was available when conditions permitted
- Accounted for almost 12,000 HP
- Francis would close gates during lunch break in summer to save water
- 1846 turbine experiments showed turbines more efficient than breast wheels in common use at time
- Turbine conversion happened during and after Northern Canal construction
- Pawtucket Gatehouse used by Francis to study turbine operation and weir flow
- Gatehouse contained testing chambers, other scientific equipment
- Gatehouse one of first industrial research labs in US
- Francis published research in 1855 Lowell Hydraulic Experiments
- 1847 Pawtucket Gatehouse contained first practical Francis Turbine
- 9ft diameter, positioned vertically in cylindrical granite wheel pit
- Francis turbine is inward-flow turbine
- Francis turbine improvement on 1838 design by Samuel Howd
- 1849 Improved turbine installed in Boott Mills
- Francis was in charge of landscaping along Northern Canal (Note: Records apparently exist in PL&C papers of plantings. Inquire with UMLL CLS?)
- Canals became part of Lowell NHP in 1978
- Northern canal is 4,373 ft long, 100 ft wide (avg), 15 to 21 ft deep
- Single bend designed to reduce friction head loss
- First 130 feet of wall downstream from dam is concrete and rubble
- Next ~1000 ft built on island of rubble in cement, backfilled with cleay and earth and rubble retaining wall
- Last section is Great River Wall, with walkway
- (continue at Pawtucket Gatehouse)
- Boot Hydropower Inc (March 1988). Small-scale hydroelectric power demonstration project: Eldred L. Field Hydroelectric Project: final technical and construction cost report. US Department of Energy.
- Coburn, Frederick William (1920). History of Lowell and Its People. Vol. 1. New York City: Lewis Historical Publishing Company.
- Cohen, Paul; Cohen, Brenda (March 1999). "Lowell National Historic Park and Lowell Heritage State Park, Massachusetts". Journal of College Science Teaching. 28 (5): 354–356.
- Francis, James B. (1883). Lowell hydraulic experiments. New York: Van Nostrand. Retrieved 2019-12-04.
- Joy, Thomas; Joy, Gretchen Sanders (1991). Early Canal Transportation: The Boats of the Middlesex Canal. University of Lowell Center for Lowell History.
- Malone, Patrick M. (2009-11-01). Waterpower in Lowell: Engineering and Industry in Nineteenth-Century America. JHU Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-9735-1.
- Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson, and Abbott Architects (1980). Lowell National Historical Park and Preservation District Cultural Resources Inventory (PDF). National Parks Service.
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- Zimmermann, Karl (1991-08-04). "Cruising the Canals of a Revitalized Lowell". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.