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TURBINE (or PROPELLER) OPERATION
The water reaches the turbine of the mill in two ways: through a gutter, a skewed ending of the sluice – or through a narrowed stone pipe.
Most mills are powered by water running through a gutter, which consists of a rectangular bed and sides, which were originally made of wood and later of smooth stone slabs in order to reduce water resistance. Water flows from the sluice through a movable wooden bed onto the wheel.
Another type of mill has a pipe consisting of cylindrical tubes carved from stone and joined together. The tube is wider in the upper part and narrows at the end, where the water comes out. In the narrowed part, a wooden nozzle was installed in the narrowed part of the pipe, further narrowing the opening up to some 10-15 cm in order to increase the pressure of the water that strikes the paddles of the propeller and thus starts the turbine operation.
There were a total of seven stone pipes on the River Ljuta. Originally, there was one more, carved in Komaje and transported to Ljuta by boat over the flooded Konavle field, but it was never installed.