An Innovative Hydraulic Ram Pump System

As we may take water accessibility for granted in the developed countries, there still exists great hardship in accessing viable water sources in a multitude of underdeveloped parts of the world. Since delivering water to higher altitudes above the common water sources requires pumping infrastructures; the absence of such facilities creates great difficulties in underdeveloped regions as the scarcity of available water causes large impacts on hydration, sanitation, agriculture, and other water-based necessities. To combat the aforementioned issues, the installation of a hydraulic ram pump system can effectively serve as a power-independent solution for delivering water to communities that face persistent struggles to obtain essential water needed to survive. The goal of the present study is to evaluate the performance of an innovative, hydraulic ram pump for an energy-independent solution to improve water accessibility. A customized ram pump design was experimented incorporating a 0.23 m long, 19.05 mm sized vertical tube above the flapper valve. This resulted a backpressure at the flapper valve facilitating the self-priming of the pump. With a decrease in the pump’s water delivery pressure, the pump’s hydraulic power output sizably increased with the maximum of 0.68 W at 38.6 kPa delivery pressure.