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high volume very low head pump

high volume very low head pump

high volume very low head pump

(OP)
I'm looking for a 50 gpm 1 to 2 feet head water pump.  I was hoping to find a screw type to power in a ditch and raise the water up to a new ditch that I could use with a small solar panel.  Once i find the pump, the conversion to solar is not a problem.

RE: high volume very low head pump

Electric trolling motor + plastic sewer pipe?

 

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

RE: high volume very low head pump

(OP)
thanks Mike

looking for a off the shelf, but I like it. Like a old hand well pump, with a motor running off a battery.

RE: high volume very low head pump

try again:
sump pump?

RE: high volume very low head pump

For a minute there thought we were going to discuss 50,000 + GPM @ 2 or 3 ft head. What a disappointment!  

It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. (Sherlock Holmes - A Scandal in Bohemia.)  

RE: high volume very low head pump

50 gpm with an old hand well pump??????

Valuable advice from a professor many years ago:  First, design for graceful failure.  Everything we build will eventually fail, so we must strive to avoid injuries or secondary damage when that failure occurs.  Only then can practicality and economics be properly considered.

RE: high volume very low head pump

What about an Archimedes screw?

RE: high volume very low head pump

If you have a good air supply available - have you looked at an air-lift arrangement.

It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. (Sherlock Holmes - A Scandal in Bohemia.)  

RE: high volume very low head pump

I don't think air lift pump will work for such a small head.  A sump pump would be preferable.  

RE: high volume very low head pump

No arguement from me on a small sump pump, an air-lift was just an alternate suggestion

It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. (Sherlock Holmes - A Scandal in Bohemia.)  

RE: high volume very low head pump

(OP)
thanks y'all.  A screw pump was what I thought of, but I can't find a simple one.

A fast moving PD water well pump came to mind also.

I guess I'll have to accept a low efficiency pump.

RE: high volume very low head pump

You may want to look into "modifying" a "salvaged" screw conveyor if you're looking to minimize the cost.

Do an Internet search for "Archimedes Screw Pump," and you will find a number of references for kits, etc.

The only industrial ones that I have seen are quite large, but I've never been serious in looking to apply one anywhere.  Since you are wanting to pump from a ditch, I presume that you will be needing something that is very "trash tolerant."  This is not an application where efficiency will reign supreme.

Solar??  Are you sure that a small solar PV array will be adequate?  Is this for just intermittent use with a relatively large battery?  My guess is that pump efficiency will be an issue for solar.  If this is a remote site, what about using wind (something similar to the old windmills that were common on US farms 50+ years ago)?

Because of likely trash issues, you may want to consider a larger pump running intermittently just for its ability to handle larger trash items.

Valuable advice from a professor many years ago:  First, design for graceful failure.  Everything we build will eventually fail, so we must strive to avoid injuries or secondary damage when that failure occurs.  Only then can practicality and economics be properly considered.

RE: high volume very low head pump

I really can't see what the big deal is here for 50 gpm at 1-2 ft of head. Just head down to the local pump or plumbing supplier and buy the smallest sump pump they have available, preferably with an inbuilt float switch as shown earlier by clay87. Throw it in the hole and forget about it and get on with something constructive.

It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. (Sherlock Holmes - A Scandal in Bohemia.)  

RE: high volume very low head pump

Impulse pump?

Let your acquaintances be many, but your advisors one in a thousand'  ...  Book of Ecclesiasticus

RE: high volume very low head pump

BigInch,

By impulse pump, do you mean a "ram pump"?  I.e.:

http://www.greenandcarter.com/main/product/how_they_work.htm

Typically needs several feet of head on the incoming flow stream to operate, but the above lists at least one that will work on an infall of only 50 cm.  Our neighbor back home used one of these to supply three families with fresh water from a small stream.  It has lasted some 50+ years.

RE: high volume very low head pump

Exactly.  It basically converts velocity to head for a few seconds, then repeats.  Romans used them for hundreds of years.  I think "impulse" describes their mechanics better than "ram", which IMO alludes to a pistion being involved.  A ram IMO refers to some precompression going on, as would a ramjet engine, which isn't much happening in a liquid application.

Impulse power 7 please Mr Spock.

Let your acquaintances be many, but your advisors one in a thousand'  ...  Book of Ecclesiasticus

RE: high volume very low head pump

Impulse power 7 please Mr Sulu


As you know Mr. Sulu was the USS enterprise helmsman borg

  

RE: high volume very low head pump

Yes, thus the precise chain of command would be Kirk -> Spock, then ->Sulu, correct.

Let your acquaintances be many, but your advisors one in a thousand'  ...  Book of Ecclesiasticus

RE: high volume very low head pump

The ram pump is indeed an engineering wonder, but it may not be the right pump for transferring irrigation water from one ditch to another.  For one thing, it requires the presence of a third ditch; i.e., there are three ports and two flows involved.  Typically, it uses energy scavenged from a relatively large falling flow to squirt a relatively smaller flow to a sink elevated above any point of the larger flow.  On the up side, it needs no electricity to do that job.


 

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

RE: high volume very low head pump

A wonderful invention making use of the water hammer / surge pressure to charge up the cylinder.

RE: high volume very low head pump

"ram IMO refers to some precompression going on, as would a ramjet engine"

Well, it is kinda like a ramjet, in using the incoming velocity head to create pressure.  Only different.  Surge pump would be a fine term to, if it didn't remind me of milking machines.  Water hammer pump would be a good description, but would likely scare people.

Mike, I do agree that some kind of weir and flume would need to be provided for the irrigation scheme, and a bigger question is how large the pump would need to be to provide 50 gpm.   

RE: high volume very low head pump

My concern would be that with a ram pump, in order to send 50 gpm up, you need to send 500 gpm down.  No 'down' was mentioned in the OP.


IMHO, still, something like a small scale model of a Wood Screw Pump would be a decent choice for this application.  ... except that I'd put the screw in the low leg of the syphon, not in the crest, so you wouldn't need a vacuum prime to get started.

 

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

RE: high volume very low head pump

The great advantage in both capital and operating cost is that you need no outside power source.... even if volumetric efficiency might be only 1 in 10, probably dependent on the ratio of lift head required to velocity head available.  If that's all the water and the head that you need, a ram or "impulse pump" is no brainer.  

Let your acquaintances be many, but your advisors one in a thousand'  ...  Book of Ecclesiasticus

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