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The treadle pump is based on a design developed in the 1970s by Norwegian engineer Gunnar Barnes. It can be made locally. A group based in the United States, IDE, International Development Enterprises, has created programs in different countries.

The program in India won an Ashden Award in 2006 for using local sources of energy to improve quality of life. Last year the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded IDE 27 million dollars. The money is to be used to expand small irrigation projects to the other half of India’s 28 states.

The treadle pump is easy to build from bamboo or other wood and two metal cylinders with pistons. The pistons go up and down as a person stands on lever devices — treadles — and uses a natural walking motion.

How many hours a day the pump needs to be operated depends on the season and how much water is needed for crops. It could be two hours a day. It could be seven hours a day.

Small children sometimes stand with their parents on the treadles. Everyone in the family can take turns operating the pump.

The Acumen Fund is a nonprofit group that invests in business projects to fight poverty. It studied the effects of treadle pumps in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Uttar Pradesh has three treadle pump manufacturers and more than 73 thousand pumps.

Acumen reported that families using them ate more vegetables, because they were able to grow more to eat and to sell. Many of these families also drank more milk, because they bought a cow with their added earnings. Men with treadle pumps often no longer have to leave the farm to seek extra work in cities.

The pumps can also improve education. Farmers often use their extra earnings to buy books for their children or to pay for schooling.

A farmer in Zambia said he hoped to have enough money in three years to buy a diesel powered pump. Then he could grow more crops over a larger area.

But the world economic crisis has had an effect on some farmers. IDE executive director Zenia Tata says some who were able to buy diesel pumps now do not enough money to buy fuel. So they are using their treadle pumps again.

Like most things in life, the rope pump is not a package of unmitigated joy and happiness. There are a few drawbacks. These include depth limitations and possible water contamination.

While the rope pump is effective for shallow wells, it is less effective for deeper wells. Unfortunately, it is not easy to predict how deep a well can be in which a rope pump will work.

The unpredictability arises from the use of local materials with no universal standards. Both the diameter and thickness of the valves, for example, affect how deep a well may be (on which to put a rope pump). Because inner tubes and leather come in several thicknesses, and because the valves are cut by hand by local artisans, they are not uniform. If the valve is too thin and flexible, it bends and releases water down to the valve below it on the rope.

As wells are more deep, the water weighing on the bottom valve may be so heavy that it all leaks down before it can be brought to the top of the well. Similarly, even if it is not too flexible, it may not be cut to precisely the diameter of the inside of the pipe, and water will again leak to the valve below. This problem, too, increases with the depth of the well. If the valve is cut to fit too tightly against the inside of the pipe, in contrast, it might more effectively bring the water up the pipe, but that might also add to the difficulty of cranking the wheel at the top. At some point the wheel will be too difficult to turn by hand. This problem, too, increases with the depth of the well.

Since these are unpredictable variables, it is not yet possible to state what is the maximum depth of well on which a rope pump will be effective. Perhaps it is 35-45 metres.

Another drawback is a potential for well contamination. The rope pump described above does not indicate that the well should be covered. There is a tendency for local people to omit covering the well, because that takes time, money, effort and desire (based on hygiene knowledge). If the well is uncovered, little animals can get into it and defecate or die or both. Human wastes and parasites can even find their way into the well if hands are not clean when the wheel is cranked.

A good well cover will allow the pipe to come up above it, before diverting the water pulled up by the upcoming rope to a container. A simple hole in the cover for the down going rope may be satisfactory. It will certainly be improved by installing a short piece of pipe, a little wider than the main pipe, above the cover, so that the valves can easily go into it, along with the rope, back down into the well.

When the residents of the community are not so concerned about hygiene (the norm, unfortunately, rather than the exception), and short on resources, they may be more tempted to omit the cover, thus allowing an increased potential for well contamination.

Appropriate training and effective hygiene public awareness may decrease the effects of these drawbacks.

While these are recognized drawbacks to using a rope pump, they are not major problems. Experts with vested interests in using hand pumps, however, will exaggerate them, and omit telling you that the costs of dealing with such minor drawbacks are far lower than the costs of using hand pumps.

The rope pump, now popular in Central America, is quite simple. It consists of a continuous loop of rope. It is wrapped around a bicycle wheel at the top of the well.

It hangs loose down into the well, and then is brought up through the inside of a plastic pipe to the top again. On the rope are attached valves, made from used inner tubes (or any suitable flexible material such as used shoe leather), every 20 to 30 cm. The bicycle wheel can be cranked by hand so that the rope moves down the outside of the pipe and then up again inside the pipe. A bicycle frame can be modified by a welder and with a hacksaw to hold the bicycle wheel, and the foot pedals modified to become a hand crank. As the rope comes up the inside of the pipe, the valves push water from the bottom of the well to the top. A junction is made into the pipe near the top so the rope continues up to the wheel while the water spills out of the pipe to a waiting container.

Students Make Rope Pump at Science Fair

All the components of the rope pump are usually available in any medium sized town: rope, used inner tubes, used bicycle frame and wheel, and plastic pipe. None is very expensive.

The rope pump has been around for years, perhaps decades, but in the past few years it has become popular and widely used in Nicaragua.

This submersible pump is from Taizhou Kaili Pumps Co., Ltd. The company established in 1994,  is one of the largest pump manufacturers in Zhejiang China. Since established, The “XIONGLI” water pumps have been honored as “the famous product of Zhejiang Province”, “new millennium high quality science and technology symbol product of Zhejiang” and “Reliable and credible enterprise” etc.
Taizhou Kaili Pumps CO., Ltd won the production license of the national industrial products in 1999, gained the popularizing license from the Ministry of Agriculture in 2000 and past the international quality system ISO9001 and CCC authentication in the same year. People’s Insurance Company of China has taken the Quality Assurance in 2002.

This submersible pump has been Approved by CE.This series pump’s model is QDX, QX series, consists of pump, mechanical seal and motor. Pump is at the bottom part of pump, which is adopted centrifugal impeller. Motor which is monophase or triphase is at the upper part of pump and seal is used where pump and motor combine, which is a kind of doubleend mechanical seal, O rings are applied to all static joints.

This series pump is small and light, which is widely used in countryside for elevating water from well, irrigation, sprinkling and domestic water supply, and also used in draining off water for fish pond and building site.

If you want to buy such submersible pump, you can click the link above to contact the company, or have a look at other pumps .

The Army Corps of Engineers has broken ground on a serious construction project: a 150,000-gallon-per-second, $500m pumping station charged with keeping the city of New Orleans a little, uh, dryer than it has been in the last few years.

The pump is just a small part of a larger $14bn plan to seal up New Orleans’ levees and bolster the city’s disaster preparedness, but it’s without a doubt the most visually impressive. PopSci’s thrown together a couple of diagrams to give us a sense of scale, and trust me, they’re necessary—see that little white thing next to the diesel engine? That’s a full-sized human being. There aren’t a whole lot of companies that make combustion engines that cartoonishly huge, so my money’s on something from a company like Wartsila-Sulzer, which makes engines like this to spin the props on ultramassive cargo ships, and conceivably, pumps:

At any rate, the pump is expected to be operational—and NOLA slightly safer—by 2011.

If your oil pump has the following situation, may be you should chang it.

Low Oil Pressure

* The most obvious sign of a bad oil pump is a low engine oil pressure reading. A bad oil pump loses its ability to pump and pressurize motor oil throughout a car’s engine, a condition that can read as a low oil pressure reading on an oil pressure gauge.

Engine Overheating

* Adequate engine oil flow is critical for maintaining proper engine operating temperature. A bad oil pump diminishes both oil flow and pressure, both of which impedes engine oil flow and can increase an engine’s operating temperature.

Engine Lifter Noise

* Engine hydraulic lifters require adequate oil lubrication in order to function properly. A bad oil pump can cause hydraulic lifter noise by reducing the amount of oil lubrication that flows to these critical engine valve-train components.

Engine Valve Noise

* Just as hydraulic lifters require adequate oil lubrication to function properly, engine valves require adequate engine oil flow in order to work properly and quietly. A bad oil pump can lead to noisy valves by limiting the amount of oil flow to an engine’s valve-train.

Excessive Engine Wear

* One of the main jobs of circulating engine oil is to reduce friction within a car’s engine. A bad oil pump reduces engine oil flow and pressure throughout an engine, a condition that leads to increased engine friction and increased engine wear.

In today’s upstream and midstream oil and gas environment, screw pumps are playing a larger role in what has traditionally been a centrifugal and reciprocating pump market. This is due in large part to technological innovation by screw pump manufacturers and the industry’s need to pump heavier crude oils. Both twin screw and three screw pumps are successfully operating in multiphase, heavy crude oil and crude oil/water emulsion applications.

The oil and gas industry is producing, transporting and refining more unconventional, heavier grades of crude oil from places such as Canada, California, Mexico and South America. Crude oil from these areas is highly viscous, often requiring diluent, steam or other stimulation just to flow the oil from the reservoirs to the pipelines. These nontraditional grades of crude oil are ideally suited for pumping with a screw pump.

Depending on the actual application, either twin screw or three screw pumps are used in crude oil pipeline services. Three screw pumps are typically found boosting pressure from laterals to the main pipeline, while twin screw pumps are predominantly utilized in the main pipeline boosting stations. The primary advantages of screw pumps include the ability to handle a wide range of viscosities; centrifugals can vapor lock while pumping diluent blended crude oils and become extremely inefficient when pumping crude oils heavier than 250 cSt. Screw pumps have extremely low pulsation, eliminating the need for pulsation dampeners or complicated pipeline support systems required by reciprocating pumps.

Three Screw Pumps

Three screw pump designs are generally capable of flow rates exceeding 1100 gpm and differential pressures up to 1700 psi. The pump consists of three rotors, one power and two driven; one externally lubricated bearing capable of handling thrust loads induced by high inlet pressure; one balanced mechanical seal; a liner; a casing and a bearing/seal housing. The power rotor (coupled to driver) performs the pumping work, while the idlers act to seal off the pumping chambers. The torque is transmitted to the driven rotors by a rolling contact. The pumped fluid creates a barrier between the rotating elements, preventing metal-to-metal contact of the rotating elements. The liquid film also supports the rotors in the liner, eliminating contact between the rotors and the liners.

As crude oil enters a three screw pump, it fills the suction pumping chamber of the screw set; as the screws turn, crude oil is conveyed from suction to discharge. This positive displacement action simply moves a volume from suction to discharge, as if it were an infinite stroke piston without the need for complicated internal porting and valving.

In most cases, three screw pumps are used in applications where sand and particulate have been removed from the crude oil (i.e. pipeline grade crude oil).  However, since some particulate may have survived the crude oil settling process, most pumps are available with alternative liner coatings to prevent premature wear, and the rotors are normally hardened.

Three screw pumps usually boost pipeline lateral pressures to the main pipeline that flows to a refinery or terminal. The main pipelines usually require higher flow rates and pressures, which is best accommodated by large twin screw pumps. Today, twin screw pumps have flow capabilities exceeding 11,500-gpm and differential pressures to 1,400-psi.

Twin Screw Pumps

Twin screw pumps are hydraulically balanced, pulsation free and deliver a given volume from suction to discharge, meeting whatever back pressure the system puts on the pump. The pump has two rotors, one drive and one driven, and relies on the pumped fluid to fill the clearances between the rotors and rotors and liner. The pumped fluid seals the individual pumping chambers of the screw profiles, allowing the pump to maintain prime. In a rigid rotor design, the liquid acts as a sealing mechanism only and does not act as a bearing support for the rotors.

The rotors are supported on both ends by bearings, and torque is transmitted from drive to driven rotor via timing gears. By eliminating rolling contact between rotors, as is the case with three screw pumps, twin screw pumps can handle everything from water to heavy crude oils.

In most designs, the timing gears and bearings are external to the pumped fluid. The timing gears are oil lubricated, while the bearings are lubricated by grease or oil. Depending on differential pressure requirements, the bearing and timing gears may require a forced lube oil system to properly dissipate heat and improve overall component reliability.

Since there are at least four bearings in a twin screw pump, there are four shaft penetrations and four mechanical seals. Seals are available in both single and double seal configurations, depending on the actual service. Single seals are typically used for crude services, while double mechanical seals with a barrier fluid system are also available.

Twin screw pumps are increasingly popular in the midstream market, where their ability to handle high viscosities allows operators to pump colder or use less diluent. This is especially evident in ongoing pipeline projects bringing heavy Canadian crude oil to the American Market.

Multiphase Applications

The evolution of twin screw pumps has led to their implementation in multiphase applications. Twin screw style pumps dominate the upstream market in multiphase applications due to their operational flexibility and economical installation. Multiphase pumps boost the untreated flow stream produced from oil wells to downstream process or gathering facilities. This means the pumps handle 100 percent liquid to 100 percent gas (with recirculation) and every combination in between. These pumps are packaged for land-based, offshore and subsea applications.

Multiphase pumps are typically found in the following services:

• Lower well head pressure-As reservoirs mature, their natural pressure declines and production decreases. Multiphase pumps are able to boost the flow line pressure, allowing increased production flow rates, while bucking downstream line pressure.  By drawing down well head pressure, additional production will occur as the inflow to the production tubing increases.
• Reduced facilities-Rather than separating the gas from the liquids, treating the phases and then compressing and pumping the individual phases, multiphase pumps handle untreated well flow with one piece of equipment. By utilizing one piece of equipment, economic justification is significantly higher for remote single well production and well cluster development with centralized process facilities.
• Flow assurance-Multiphase pumps deliver a constant flow at a given speed regardless of system pressure. By changing the pump speed, operators can optimize the flow rate and inlet pressure, thus boosting total reservoir recovery, improving end of life production and reducing paraffin or hydrate buildup.

Current multiphase pump designs deliver up to 330,000-bpd (total flow) at differential pressures up to 1,200-psi. Given the current trend toward deepwater development, the oil and gas industry has recently identified the need for multiphase pumps capable of flows up to 600,000-bpd (total flow) and differential pressures exceeding 2,400-psi.

The operational flexibility, higher efficiency and robustness of screw pumps make them ideal candidates for an increasing array of applications within the oil and gas industry. Ongoing development of screw pump technology will only broaden their use in multiphase, crude oil, emulsion and produced water services.

This kind of Screw Pump is produced by  HG Machinery Group Co., Ltd.
This twin screw pump can transfer various fluid medium without solid, and high viscosity paste medium. Twin screw pump has wide availability and reliability, no matter lubricating or not, and no matter corrosion or medium with gas and liquids.

Parameter:
1. Capacity: 0.5-2000m3/h
2. Pressure: 0.1-3.0MPa
3. Viscosity: 0-100, 000Cst
4. Temperature: -30-250 Degree Centigrade

The leading features:

1. Deliver arious medium smoothly without and pulsation. There are medium to be pumped throughout in the working elements ad sealing liquid which guaranteed by the construction of pump casing. All of the pump possess high self priming ability and can deliver the liquid mixture with gas or oil.

2. The high suction performance ling very low NPSHR was guaranteed by the special design of pump

3. Adopted the external bearing which lubricated individually, so can deliver various non-lubrication medium.

4. Adopted synchrinous gear, there is on metallic contact between rotating parts, there is no dangerous even dry running in a short time.

5. Various construction completely such as horizontal, vertical and casing with liner, and so on. The pump can handle various clean liquid without solid grain, low or high viscosity medium, even can deliver some corrosive medium with a correct material selection.

6. Suction of the pump is at the flank and discharge is on the top, the pump has small cubage, so it is especially used to the place of small space, such as ship.

This is a very usful invention for people who offen go out for camping or survey.  In the field, we can’t find water that can drink although there are a lot of lush vegetation surrouning. If you have this portable water purifier, it will become better.

You only need to find a water source, then repeatedly squeezing the pump, about two minutes late, the special suction device can absorb water and expel through the pipes at the other side, ultimately. The build-in filtration sterilization system can ensure the water is safety. And it can prevent the iodine-deficiency diseases because adding a small amount of iodine to sterilize. Each portable water purifier can absorb and filter 5 liters drinking water at most.

This portable water purifier has passed the test of  London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

It’s cost £ 30.

Consider a typical sewage collection system. At the initial point of discharge, water first flows (by gravity) into a network of (sloped down) drain pipes, which gradually intercept a larger main pipe. Eventually, all this water needs to be lifted to a sewage wastewater processing plant.

The lift varies from several feet to hundreds of feet in some cases. To accomplish this eventual lift, there are several options:
1. Archimedes Screw

Archimedes screw is the oldest known pumping method, and it is rarely used today. The obvious benefit is its simple design, with no seals or packing to worry about. However, it requires significant space to accommodate the necessary low angle of incline, which also increases weight substantially. Typically, only one bearing near the discharge (drive) side is provided, so the entire rotor sits cantilever at a tight clearance required to keep water from flowing back.

Eventually, the rotor sags through the clearance and wears the bottom trough, requiring frequent-and rather expensive-repairs. When a second (lower) bearing is provided, it is lubricated by grease, which-due to submergence-eventually washes out and is difficult to reduplicate. Removal of the unit for maintenance is also difficult due to weight and inaccessibility.
2. Self-Priming Centrifugal Pumps

Self-priming centrifugal pumps are common, mostly for relatively low flow applications (under 1,000-gpm or so). Like any other pump, it has pluses and minuses. Maintenance is easy since the pump sits on the surface, and trash can be removed by the access ports at the side of the casing. Priming is achieved by:

a. Foot valve

b. Check valve

c. Auxiliary vacuum pump evacuation of the inlet air

Both (a) and (b) options are the Achilles’ heel of the method, and a vacuum pump adds complexity to the system. However, if these issues are understood and pumps regularly and properly maintained, a reliable operation results. If an install-and-forget maintenance is practiced, these applications become a problem after three to five years, when wear opens clearances and priming no longer looks or works as good as promised in the glossy paper brochure.
3. Vertical Sump

Vertical sump design solves priming problems by submersing the pumping element under water. A long shaft connects it to a surface-mounted electric motor, which keeps it from getting wet. The maintenance of packings or seals is easy since the pump does not need to be pulled for repacking service. However, with a long shaft comes an alignment problem, unbalance or wear of the line bushings. Lubrication of bushings can be problematic, due to plugging or breaking of the long (and often flimsy) grease tubing. When tubing, bushings or impeller require maintenance, the entire unit needs to be pulled, which can be an issue for hard-to-access places.
4. Submersible (Wet) Pumps

Submersible (wet) pumps have an electric motor directly coupled to a pump. The entire unit is compact and relatively light, which makes it acceptable for relatively low depth wet wells (10-ft to 20-ft) at horsepower typically under 30-hp. Submergence of the motor, while a benefit, can also be trouble. To ensure water does not get to the motor windings, a double mechanical seal, filled with oil, is installed. As the impeller wears out (wastewater applications can be nasty!), unbalance and vibrations eventually tend to deflect the cantilever shaft and fail the seal.

Given this issue, submersible pump motors are typically made with better quality stator windings as compared to dry, surface application motors. Even after being flooded, the windings continue to function without shorting for some time. Moisture sensors are provided to detect, warn and alarm, but unfortunately, many operators do not have these connected-or disconnect them on purpose-to avoid nuisance alarms, and thus set the units on a road towards eventual undetected failure.

Even for a perfectly maintained submersible pump, with no impeller wear and resultant unbalance to consider, a mechanical seal life has a finite lifespan. While the secondary seal sees a better environment (clean oil), the primary seal is in direct contact with dirty sewage and eventually wears. While the exact value of such seal life depends on the application, it will likely not significantly exceed five years on average, so the pump cannot be viewed as install-and-forget.
5. Submersible (Dry) Pumps

Submersible (dry) pumps are similar to the wet submersible except that they are installed in the dry well, and connected to the wet well via suction piping. Servicing and pulling such a pump for maintenance is easier with simpler, obviously cleaner access. The issue of mechanical seal life, however, remains the same as for the wet submersibles. Since cooling of the motor is no longer done by submersion, dry submersibles require circulation of a portion of the pumpage through the cooling passages of the motor housing, which can clog these passages with dirty pumpage and overheat the motor.
6. Dry Well Sewage Pumps

The expense of constructing a dry well next to a wet well is often justified by the elimination of a long shaft (as in (3)) or the dangers of flooding the motor windings (as in (4) and (5)). Such installation looks no different than any other surface-mounted pump with a vertically oriented shaft coupled to the motor shaft. Packing or mechanical seals are a matter of choice and preference, with decisions on that very similar to regular surface-mounted pumps.

The main concern is the potential of flooding the entire pumping station, in which case a dry-designed motor fails quickly. Any corrective action is difficult until the entire station gets pumped out on emergency service.
7. Dry Well U-Jointed Shafting Pumps

Dry well U-jointed shafting pumps solve the concern of possible station flooding. However, all issues of longer shafting come into consideration. Typically, two, three or even more segments of the pump-to-motor shafting are present, with pillow blocks guiding the shafting along the way. Alignment of such shafting is critical. Just as critical is a need to balance the shafts and (preferably) the entire shafting train, with balancing machines designed to accommodate very long shafts (a difficult or expensive process). Lubrication of the bearings of the U-joints as well as pillow blocks is also critical, and needs to be followed by the proper preventative maintenance procedure. If neglected, high vibrations and failures would be the norm, not an isolated event.
Recommendations

There are several methods to lift water to the surface, each with pluses and minuses. None allow an install-and-forget attitude. The modes of failure, critical path to failure and root cause for each of these are different. By understanding the fundamental principles and applying proactive maintenance and operating strategies, you can prevent or significantly reduce failures.

Which of these methods works best for you? What are the issues you may have had and overcame by implementing this methodology? Let us know. Pumps & Systems and Pumping Machinery present this series to help build awareness and knowledge of how these alternatives work and when. Don’t fear the pitfalls-instead, understand the potential issues and apply the best options for your application.

As always, a parting quiz! Which other method of water lifting is common and what are the benefits and drawbacks of it? The first three people who answer correctly will get a free pass to a Pump School session.