Water Pumps

Pumps can be classified by their method of displacement into positive displacement pumps (trap fluid to increase pressure), impulse pumps (trap air to increase pressure), velocity pumps (move water mass to increase pressure), gravity pumps (weight of fluid; ala syphon / Heron's fountain), steam pumps (boil at bottom, distil at top).

Displacement pumps are certainly the most common and can be divide into several types:

• Rotary-type positive displacement: internal gear, screw, shuttle block, flexible vane or sliding vane, circumferential piston, flexible impeller, helical twisted roots (e.g. the Wendelkolben pump) or liquid ring vacuum pumps
• Reciprocating-type positive displacement: piston or diaphragm pumps
• Linear-type positive displacement: rope pumps and chain pumps

Also:

• Wind power

Archimedes Screw

Also:

• http://www.rhizomecollective.org/virtualTour.html Wind powered pump made from a bike wheel and bicycle pump.+
• http://www.mcs.drexel.edu/~crorres/Archimedes/Screw/SourcesScrew.html Archimedes Screw
  • http://www.mcs.drexel.edu/~crorres/screw/screw.pdf Calculating the optimal design of an Archimedes Screw Pump.

Spiral Waterwheel Pump

In a spiral pump, the water is trapped by gravity inside the ever higher coil of the spiraling pipe and is then pushed out the center. Paddles turn the spiral. Also:

• Spiral Waterwheel Pump

Rope Pumps

• http://www.mawama.org/rope-pump Excellent site with lots of data and testing. Highest efficiency at 0.2mm spacing between piston and pipe wall, rope speed of 1.2 meters / second, and 1 meter of rope between pistons (although anything from 0.4 to 2m/piston was about the same).
• http://www.wot.utwente.nl/documents/publications/1999_ropepump/ropepump/index.html Very complete construction manual
• http://www.unep.or.jp/ietc/publications/techpublications/techpub-8a/rope.asp Rope and Washer pump
• http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1853390224 How to Make a Rope Washer Pump by Robert Lambert

Ram Pumps

• http://journeytoforever.org/at_waterpump.html Ram pumps
  also: Humphrey Pumps, Great Pyramid

Bubble Pumps

Commonly found in aquariums (although impeller pumps seem to be making headway) these work by injecting air into the bottom of a vertical tube which is open at both ends and placed with its top sticking up above the water surface and its bottom some depth below the waters surface. The bubbles rise and expand and water is driven up the tube by the ascending bubbles. Water (and air) exit from the top of the tube.

A bubble pump operates most efficiently when the bubbles fill the tube from side to side and are seperated from one another by a slug of water. The maximum diameter tube in which this "slug flow" occurs is given by the following equation (Chisholm, 1983):

where vf and vg are the specific volumes of the liquid and vapor respectively, and à (sigma) is the surface tension. Note, for a given fluid in a tube of diameter greater than that predicted by this equation, slug flow will never occur.

For water, specific volume is 0.001, air is 0.78 m3/kg^. Moist air is closer to 0.85. Surface tension of water is 72.8 millinewtons (mN) per meter at 20 °C (68 °F)^. Gravity is 9.81 m/s2^.
So 19*sqrt((0.07275*0.001)/(9.81*(1-(0.001/.85)))) meters in inmeters in inches or ~2 inches?

When used to pump water, 60% of the length of the pump must be submerged and you will need 0.43 psi of air pressure for each foot of water above the outlet of your air tube.

• http://www.me.gatech.edu/energy/andy_phd/three.htm
• http://www.me.gatech.edu/energy/andy_phd/four.htm
• http://www.geocities.com/davidmdelaney/geyser/Sorensens-bubble-pump.html
• http://www.absalom.com/mormon/health/water-pumps.htm
• http://www.bubbleactionpumps.com/bubble_pump_manual/bubble_pump_manual_index.htm
• http://www.bubbleactionpumps.com/bubble_pump_manual/components_bubble_pump.htm
• http://www.airliftech.com/ Windmill driven bubble pump.

+ See also:

• http://www.tpub.com/content/engine/14105/css/14105_47.htm +
• http://www.millennium-ark.net/News_Files/INFO_Files/Hand_Pump.html Easy to build check valve hand pump. With parts list and instructions.
• http://www.thepump.org/art6completeGPpump3.html
  http://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/a-new-theory-for-the-great-pyramid-how-science-is-changing-our-view-of-the-past Was the Great Pyramid a combustion powered water pump?
  • http://www.thepump.org/jet.html
• http://www.fortunecity.com/greenfield/bp/16/hump.htm Humphrey Pumps
• http://physics.kenyon.edu/EarlyApparatus/Fluids/Pump/Pump.html Early Lab pumps
• http://www.wedoweelake.com/~aprotech/apttable.htm Appropriate Technology including several pumps. Not much detail
• http://www.experimentarium.dk/uk/naturvidenskab_og_teknik/schiolers/index.html Photo collection of water lifting devices.