Holyoke Testing Flume

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The Holyoke Testing Flume was a hydraulic testing lab in Holyoke, Massachusetts, run by the Holyoke Water Power Company from 1870 to 1932. It tested water turbine designs and completed about 3,176 efficiency tests. Court testimony described it as the only facility of its kind in the 19th and early 20th century, which helped standardize American water turbines. In the 1880s Clemens Herschel redesigned the facility and called it the first modern hydraulic laboratory in the United States and the world.

A key achievement there was the Venturi meter, invented by Herschel to measure large water flows accurately—an invention that remains widely used today. The 1906 mission of the lab was threefold: test all turbines using Holyoke water to estimate water use by mills; test experimental wheels to improve them; and test standard American turbine patterns for new plants.

The flume’s origins are linked to Lowell, Massachusetts. In 1868 Asa Swain built a testing flume to test Swain Turbine Company designs, with James B. Francis involved and Emerson overseeing efficiency experiments. After a push from Stewart Chase of the Holyoke Water Power Company, the testing work moved to Holyoke and expanded.

The Holyoke Flume revolutionized turbine development in the United States and remained a standard test through the 1880s–1920s, even appearing in court cases as a benchmark for turbine efficiency. It contributed to improvements in Francis turbines and to the development of the Hercules, the first modern mixed-flow turbine. It is also where Francis developed his weir formula for turbine efficiency, a method that differed from European readings.

As electricity generation grew, the flume’s equipment became obsolete, and it closed in 1932. Since the 1950s, the building has been used as an electrical substation by Holyoke Gas & Electric. In 2018, HG&E supported testing of a new turbine wheel prototype as part of a Clean Energy Test Bed Initiative.

Today the oldest hydraulic laboratory in the United States, the Alden Research Laboratory in Holden, Massachusetts, continues to operate and houses early dynamometers and Venturi meters.