Cheap Materials for Hydram Pumps

[Ankur]

Hi, I'm a member of a non-profit student organization called "Engineers for a Sustainable World" (www.esustainableworld.org). One of the projects I am currently working on is developing cheap, but very durable, hydraulic ram pumps to install in farms in the country of Panama. Since PVC (or galvanized steel) is not an affordable material for most people in Panama one of the main concerns is finding a cheaper material for building the hydram and piping. I know there has already been a lot of work in designing cheap hydrams, but if anyone has any experience with using "non-traditional" materials for building pumps could you please talk about what sort of materials you used, and what the pros/cons of using these materials were.

Thanks,

Ankur

   

[Nando]

Ankur:

hydraulic ramp pumps DO require piping with some strength because the water movement is done in such a way that each pump pulse generates a high pressure that the pipe needs to support.

PVC world wide is economical. PVC is the practical device for lower head RAM PUMPS

There is another way which can be done with wood, though labor intensive and is to build wooden made pipe with internal smooth surface ( difficult) to use the pipes a pressure chambers to accept a piston to push the water higher -- all made of wood -- quite impractical for such service --

Depending on the pump rising height the piping has to be able to support the ram pulses that may be as high as 3000 PSI.

Nando

[Countryboy]

Hello Ankur,

  Is the goal to pump water higher, or is the goal to use a hydraulic ram to pump water?  There are other options for water pumping.

  I read an interesting article some time ago, about a project in Africa.  The workers built a regular waterwheel, with a spiral of piping attached to one side of the wheel.  One end of the piping had a cup which dipped into the water every rotation.  As the water moved through the spirals, it built pressure on the outlet end of the pipe.

http://www.lurkertech.com/chris/eco/pump/morgan/tripod/

  The Persians (Iranians) built huge waterwheels thousands of years ago, which still exist today.  These waterwheels had a series of buckets along the outer perimeter of the wheel.  As the flow of a river turned the wheels, the buckets lifted water.

[elvin1949]

Nando

 Would it be possable to use bamboo for the piping.

It is strong and easy to work.Could be made stronger by raping with vines found in the local area.

Just a thought.

later

elvin

[Ankur]

Hi again, thanks for the comments.

Countryboy-The goal is to use a RAM pump to pump water since we are connecting it to existing water pipes in grazing areas. Still, the idea of the waterwheel is very interesting, and the creating a wheel similar to the Mazowe wheel (from the article you linked to) is something which I think could be very useful in more "clustered" agriculture areas, where a number of people could benefit from the waterwheel pump.

Nando-We will be dealing with relatively low head in our system, which is why we are looking at the possibility of using alternative materials. We are going to install PVC pumps and piping in a few farms, however, but that is possible mainly because we are getting funding do so from a Panama based NGO. To install pumps on a large scale would, of course, be more costly and would not be supported by most NGOs. I think you're right -that it would be quite inefficient to build the entire structure out of wood (though as elvin suggested, using bamboo may be a possibility-I have also read about some instances where bamboo was used, at least for the piping).

Are there any materials that people have in mind?

Thanks for the replies!

-Ankur

[cyplesma]

Just a brain storm idea, seems the romans are some group of people on an island in the medeterrian used 3 ft long clay pipes, don't know/remember what they used as a sealant between connections, but they were basically street type fittings, (male on one end female on the other). how high does the water have to go, or are you just getting it over a hump from the source to the fields?

[ruddycrazy]

Hiya Ankur,

           Eh Mate is is a link to a hyd-ram pump site showing how you can make one out of simply water pipe fittings, it has a wealth of infomation so I hope it's a help to to you.

Cheers Bryan

http://www.clemson.edu/irrig/Equip/ram.htm