Water wheels are hydropower converters installed in sites with heads typically below 6 m. Due to their low environmental impacts and costs, water wheels are sustainable technologies. The estimation of their weight is essential to quantify construction and transportation costs, and the load on the ground. The weight estimation of a water wheel is the aim of the present study. A short-cut equation, relating the wheel weight to head and flow rate, is derived by collecting and analysing a database of existing water wheels. A qualitative comparison with analogous equations for Kaplan and Francis turbines is shown, illustrating the similarity between water wheels and Francis turbines. The proposed equations can be used in civil engineering applications to estimate the permanent load of a water wheel, while the collected database can be used for elaborations and validations in future researches and projects.

水车是安装在水头通常低于6 m的站点中的水力发电转换器。由于其对环境的影响和成本低，水车是可持续的技术。对它们的重量进行估算对于量化建筑和运输成本以及地面负荷至关重要。水轮的重量估计是本研究的目的。通过收集和分析现有水轮的数据库，可以得出将轮重与扬程和流量相关的捷径方程。显示了与Kaplan和Francis涡轮机类似方程的定性比较，说明了水轮和Francis涡轮机之间的相似性。提出的方程可用于土木工程应用中，以估算水轮的永久载荷，