Hydraulic Ram Pump Design #1

I used Doug's 2" drive pipe design as a starting point with a different modification to the 2" foot(waste) valve which allows weight to be added from on top rather than unscrewing the foot valve. Cable clamps are used to restrain 3/8" weight nuts on the 5/16" shaft on top of the waste valve.

The drive pipe drop is about 4 feet and the drive line length about 25 feet. There is some loss of output due to elastic expansion of the PVC drive pipe and the rebound of the current non-rigid mounting.

I discovered that the expansion tank pressure greatly effects the output and the optimum output occurs just before the waste valve becomes unstable and hangs up. The range of output variance with changes in expansion tank pressure is more than 50%. I suspect this instability is why multiple ram pumps are used in parallel where reliability is critical rather than just installing a larger pump.

I have some ideas about how to run reliably at the maximim output using more modern technology. Hopefully, after the farmwork slows down, I'll have some time this fall and winter to develop those ideas.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Hydraulic Ram Pump
• Ram Pump
• water hammer
• pump uphill
• remote pump

[desertlight]

@IdahoViewing

Another problem is the standard expansion tank bladder fills the entire inside of the tank and doesn't work very well due to little usable air and water space when it compresses. I made an earlier version with 3" ABS pipe and a bicycle tube and it worked better until it developed an air leak from pressure pulses. Even a 2 liter plastic bottle would be more reliable than something glued together.

[desertlight]

@IdahoViewing

Sorry to say that I had a medical problem and haven't gotten back to this project. Hopefully I'll get it finished by early spring (Utah) since I need it then. One problem is the delivery pipe cost, burial, and effective resistance. Although claims have been made that ram pumps can raise water 10 times the input fall, no one talks about the limiting length of the delivery pipe and how the water plug mass in the pipe interacts with the integrating pressure vessel.

[IdahoViewing]

Any progress on the ram pump design?