Branca's steam impulse turbine
Turbina de impulso de vapor de Branca
- Date
- 1629 · confidence high
- Place
- Rome, Lazio, Italy
- Credited to
- Giovanni Branca
- Field
- Matter & energy
What it is
In Le machine Branca published a drawing of a bladed wheel driven by a jet of steam from a boiler shaped like a human head. It is the first steam impulse turbine design.
It is a project with no evidence it was ever built; Taqi al-Din described a similar machine almost a century earlier.
What it led to
- the idea of using a steam jet to turn a wheel
- precedent for the De Laval and Parsons turbines