Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Chatting => Design and Construction => Topic started by: Finlay-S on April 12, 2021, 11:31
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Hello wonderful people!
I was wondering if you may offer some feedback on the apparent practicality of the water pump shown below.
It was researched, designed and manufactured by myself as part of an A-level design project to improve subsistence agricultural sustainability in developing countries where access to complex machinery and materials is limited.
The pump is designed to be folded down and carried over long distances to pump water from a variety of sources for small scale irrigation in the hope of assisting less developed agricultural regions in sourcing an income and developing further.
I would greatly appreciate your expert feedback as a grower yourself, and any comments or apparent modifications would be more than welcome!
Thank you!
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I can see it sucks up water from the hose but where does it discharge? Do you have any figures for flow rates? Could it be connected to a windmill for instance?
And I've got to ask, what's with the second picture and your face? Very odd! :)
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Hello Finlay-S
Good to hear from you! I have a few comments and suggestions.
First, in terms of providing power, your hand crank is fine for testing a pump, but not practical for operation. Try pumping a useful amount of water, 100 gallons for example. Your arm will quickly tire out. John's windmill idea is a good one. If used in an area where wind is not reliable, you might be able to use a fall in a stream or discharge from a pond to power a mill. If human power is required, consider powering it with a bicycle.
If your prototype was developed into a working model, the framework needs to be much stronger and more rigid to be able to stand up to regular use.
I am also curious about flow rate. If it is set up next to a stream or pond, how many gallons a minute can you produce?
I encourage you to keep working on your project. The lives of other people may one day be improved by the testing and experimenting that you are doing now! Good luck with it. Don't be discouraged by tough questions or comments, they are essential to designing better technology. The world becomes a better place when we all try to help our fellow human beings.
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Thank you both for your thoughtful comments, highlighting some pertinent issues with this initial prototype as well as offering solutions was an incredible help.
Alternative power sources are being considered through the use of a versatile and modular adapter which would allow the hand crank to be replaced with e.g a small single cylinder engine, water wheel or as per your recommendation, a windmill.
There is still plenty more work to be done, primarily with the rigidity as you mentioned which resulted in a loss of energy to lateral 'wobble', thus reducing the efficiency, so currently the flow rate is sub-optimal, however the energy to output ration is significantly better than the original pump on its own.
Thank you again for your help, it was incredibly kind of you to put aside time to offer your opinion!
(p.s, the blurred picture is of a friend who would rather not be shown online... sorry if that was a little odd!)
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(p.s, the blurred picture is of a friend who would rather not be shown online... sorry if that was a little odd!)
That's OK - thanks for explaining it.
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If doing this for A Level, you need to think if you are designing this for portable use, hence a bicycle could be used 2 ways, or not portable.
You need to stick to your brief. Remember to discuss with your teacher.
Water would need to travel from source to where needed, containers to be filled up.
Also ecology affected by water removal