Design and Development of Renewable Energy Water Pump

Abstract

This study aims to develop a water pump that utilizes natural hydro energy as driving force to deliver water to a higher ground. The conceptual design of using water wheel to extract kinetic energy from water flow, and transfer the energy to power multiple piston pump was created based on the extensive literature review findings. The actual prototype is then built and modified to suit the actual environment considerations. Findings show that single pump is able to produce maximum pressure head of 7.14 m and the maximum volume flowrate achieved is 19.2 l/h (320 ml/min). However, when multiple piston is connected in series (in this research three pistons is used), the maximum water head increased to 13.77 m and the maximum volume flowrate about 19.2 l/h. This result shows that the water pump can be used in remote area or places at higher ground that does not have constant water access. Performance of the whole system can be improved by several factors such as adding more blades to the water wheel, steeper angle and better piston shaft design for water pump, and also proper water sealing of the whole system to prevent head loss and increase the overall performance.

Full text

Design and Development of Renewable
Energy Water Pump
Man Djun Lee, Pui San Lee, Jasper Ling, and Heng Jong Ngu
Abstract This study aims to develop a water pump that utilizes natural hydro energy
as driving force to deliver water to a higher ground. The conceptual design of using
water wheel to extract kinetic energy from water flow, and transfer the energy to
power multiple piston pump was created based on the extensive literature review
findings. The actual prototype is then built and modified to suit the actual environment
considerations. Findings show that single pump is able to produce maximum pressure
head of 7.14 m and the maximum volume flowrate achieved is 19.2 l/h (320 ml/min).
However, when multiple piston is connected in series (in this research three pistons
is used), the maximum water head increased to 13.77 m and the maximum volume
flowrate about 19.2 l/h. This result shows that the water pump can be used in remote
area or places at higher ground that does not have constant water access. Performance
of the whole system can be improved by several factors such as adding more blades
to the water wheel, steeper angle and better piston shaft design for water pump, and
also proper water sealing of the whole system to prevent head loss and increase the
overall performance.
Keywords Natural energy ·Wa t e r p u m p ·Rural development ·Water suppl y ·
Piston pump
1 Introduction
Energy is defined as the source of power or the ability of matter to work because
of its mass, movement, electric charge, etc. [1]. There are several types of natural
energy that had been discovered until today such as electrical, solar, kinetic, potential,
nuclear, wind, hydro energy, etc. The law of conservation of energy states that the
M. D. Lee (B
)·P. S. L e e ·H. J. Ngu
School of Engineering and Technology, University College of Technology Sarawak, Sibu,
Malaysia
e-mail: man.djun@ucts.edu.my
J. Ling
School of Built Environment, University College of Technology Sarawak, Sibu, Malaysia
©SpringerNatureSingaporePteLtd.2020
P. Rajendran et al. (eds.), Proceedings of International Conference of Aerospace
and Mechanical Engineering 2019, Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981- 15-4756- 0_27
329

330 M. D. Lee et al.
sum of the energy of a system is always constant, and it is not possible to destroy nor
create energy, it can only be relocated or transform into another form of energy [2].
With this law in mind, scientist and professionals had been trying to develop devices
that can utilize the natural energy and the principle of conservation of energy such
as turbine and pump [3]. Pump is a device that impart energy to its fluid medium. In
the case of water pump, they relocate the energy provided to them to the water. The
results are usually the increment of water pressure and change in water velocity. The
conversion of energy involved in this case is normally from any form of energy that
is provided to the pump, to hydro power [4]. There are many parameters to determine
a pump’s performance. Mass flow rate of fluid through the pump is one of the most
common factors to determine the pump’s performance. However, there is another
determinant that governs a pump’s performance, that is by its net head H or known
as Bernoulli head [4]. Net head has its dimension of length. Even when the pump is
operating, the net head is considered as the same column height of water.
Generally, water pump is powered by electrical energy. This had put those who
lives in remote area where the accessibility to electricity and water is a problem and
this translated into a hard situation. In Sarawak state alone, the ratio of urban to rural
area is about 52%:48% with 1.2 million of populations living in rural settings. Diving
in deeper, the rural area is made up of 6235 villages and that is about 200,000 homes
(excluding unexplored region). 1919 (30%) of villages have no access to constant
electricity and that is 40,000 homes and 250,000 people [5]. Accessibility to the rural
villages is one of the main challenges especially for Malaysia. The use of renewable
energy for water pumping applications is attractive in rural areas of many developing
countries [6]. However, considering there is no proper road structure to access to
most of the rural villages, importing bulky machinery such as electrical generator
and solar panel or other resources such as fuel is often as considered dangerous work
[7]. Thus, this study aims to design a water pump that can utilize available hydro
energy and without the help of electricity to pump water to the rural villages for their
development. In this aspect, the research questions are:
1. What is the suitable mechanism to pump water by using energy from river in
Malaysia?
2. What are the design considerations to develop such water pump?
3. What is the performance of the water pump?
This study is designed to addressed these issues. In most of the present industry,
turbomachinery such as pump and turbine are an essential asset. For example, agri-
culture industry require pump to deliver water and fertilizers to the crops. Housing
industry as well require pump to deliver water to higher floor for residents’ usage.
Thus, by providing a renewable energy water pump to these industries will be able
to help in term of reducing the overall operation cost because it uses renewable and
clean energy. On the other hand, Malaysia is a country that acquire plenty of natural
resources compared to other countries. Malaysia grows its own agricultural products
and is internationally dominant in its production line such as rubber and pepper. To
maintain these crops in such humongous scale, water delivery system must be at top
notch status and it is costly to do so. Thus, by implementing the renewable energy

Design and Development of Renewable Energy Water Pump 331
water pump, it helps the agriculture sector to save cost on energy consumption and the
extra capital can be focused on ameliorating the economy even further. As mentioned
earlier, implementation of renewable energy water pump succor in Malaysia’s econ-
omy. Improved economy indicates improved lifestyle to the citizen as well. Not only
that, the renewable energy pump does not require any external energy source such
as electricity. Thus, by using renewable energy will help in reducing the pollution
index in Malaysia and provide Malaysian a healthier lifestyle.
2 Literature Review
Due to the unique geographical location of Malaysia (Malaysia is located near to
the equator), Malaysia has an equatorial climate nature that is hot and humid all
year round. However, despite that, Malaysia has a relatively high rainfall per year,
measured 98 in. (248.92 cm) a year compared to other developed country such as
United States has only 32.21 in. (81.81 cm) rainfall per year [8,9]. Having this
amount of rainfall per year indicates that Malaysia has higher cloud coverage and
this make Malaysia a unfavorable location for installing solar panel. Other than that,
Malaysia’s forest type is dominated by a very dense and vast biodiversity tropical
rainforest which is known as lowland dipterocarp forest which mainly consist dipte-
rocarp trees from family of Dipterocarpaceae [10]. Dipterocarp trees from Diptero-
carpaceae family are mostly large forest emergent species and the maximum height
they can grow up to range from 40 to 70 m which allow them to gain the most
sunlight compared to other tree species [11]. However, due to this overwhelming
height, they can block up to 70% of sunlight reaching the ground which make the
approach of using solar energy to operate the water pump another step further from
us [12]. In addition, wind energy could not be used as the power source because wind
turbine is absurdly huge and required large space to install it. Installing one wind
turbine requires 25 m diameter empty field and if we were to install multiple wind
turbine, the distance between two adjacent turbine has to be five times their turbine
diameter (which is 25 m normally). Not only that, the possible power output by a
single normal windmill is only 0.0756 W per m2land area which is relatively small
compared to the power required by an average water pump which is 150 W [13,14].
Lastly, as mentioned earlier it is also inconvenient and dangerous to bring in bulky
equipment into remote area because of transportation difficulty [7]. In short, review
from literature suggest that it is more convenient to use hydro energy compared to
other form of renewable energy to power up water pump is remote area.
2.1 Hydro Energy
Water itse l f c a n a c t a s a m e d i u m t o c a r r y e n e rgy such as thermal energ y, potential
energy and kinetic energy. By utilizing the principle of conservation of energy, several

332 M. D. Lee et al.
methods were invented to extract energy from water. Hydroelectric is a technology
that uses water (hydro) to generate electricity (electric) and dam in one of the common
hydroelectric. Dam is a barrier/reservoir that traps water in place, and then release
the water to a turbine system to generate electricity. That is the rough concept of how
dam uses water to generate electricity. When the water is trapped, potential energy
carried by the water is at its maximum. As the release valve is opened, water is
gushed out from the valve and potential energy is converted to kinetic energy. As the
water rushes down with its maximum velocity, it will pass through a series of turbine.
At that instant, the shaft is turned by the water and kinetic energy is converted to
mechanical energy and then to electricity.
Hydraulic Ram is the only pump that does not rely on other form of power but only
kinetic energy in the water to pump water. The key mechanism that allows hydraulic
ram to pump water without the help of external energy is the water hammer effect.
Water Hamme r E f f e c t i s a p h e n o m e n o n t h a t u t i l i zes the incompressible characteristic
of water to increase the pressure within itself. Imaging the water as a rigid body and
travel at a certain velocity. If the water were to be stopped suddenly, the entire
system will experience a sudden pressure propagation shock due to the water is
incompressible. This might be bad for the system because if the water were to travel
in a high velocity and stopped suddenly, it might damage or even blow up the entire
system [14]. However, the water hammer effect is not necessarily bad all the time,
not in the case of hydraulic ram. Figure 1shows the basic components of hydraulic
ram.
Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of hydraulic ram [15]

Design and Development of Renewable Energy Water Pump 333
Fig. 2 Schematic diagram
of water wheel [16]
The whole working process of hydraulic pump will start from water entering the
drive pipe from a certain height and flow out from the impulse valve (because the air
valve will be closed). As the water had gained enough velocity, it will shut the impulse
valve and the water will experience a sudden pressure spike (water hammer effect).
As the pressure of the water increases, it will force the air valve to open and water will
flow to the air chamber. As the water in air chamber increases, the volume of the air
will decrease and its pressure will increase (obeying Boyle’s Law, P1V1=P2V2). As
the air chamber gained enough pressure, it will then push the water into the delivery
valve and finally to the designated destination. Thus, the entire process involved no
external energy such as electricity nor solar energy. However, the pressure head of
such mechanism is not high making it its limitation in water delivery.
Water wheel is one of the o l d e s t m e t h o d s t h a t u s e s w a t e r t o g e n e r a t e e n e rgy. I t was
recorded that the first water wheel ever invented was during the first century of BC
[16]. The working principle of water wheel is similar to that of dam. It is normally
installed on water source. As water passes through its “wheel” that has “fins” on it,
the wheel will rotate and convert the kinetic energy to mechanical energy. Figure 2
illustrates the working principal of a water wheel.
2.2 Pumps
There are two main types of pump which are positive-displacement machines where
fluid is transferred into a closed volume, and dynamic machines where there is no
closed volume. There are many parameters to determine a pump’s performance. Mass
flow rate of fluid through the pump is one of the most common factors to determine the
pump’s performance. However, there is another determinant that governs a pump’s
performance, that is by its net head Hor known as Bernoulli head [4]. Net head has
its dimension of length. Even when the pump is operating, the net head is considered
as the same column height of water. Fluid can be put into two extreme situations

334 M. D. Lee et al.
Fig. 3 Pump performance
curve [4]
responding to the net head the fluid possesses during that particular condition. For
instance, when a fluid has high net head, the mass/volume flow rate of the fluid
could be zero (˙
V=0). This normally happens when the outlet is block, and the net
head in this extreme situation is called the shutoff head. The other extreme situation
on the other hand, is when the net head is equal to zero (H=0).Atthisinstant,
the mass/volume flow rate will be at its maximum and this flow rate is addressed
as free delivery. These two situations is called the extreme situation because this is
when the pump does no useful work (extreme situation 1) or there is no load on the
pump (extreme situation 2) [4]. Pump performance graph is acquired when these two
situations and pump’s reaction under different situation is plotted into a graph. The
example of pump performance curve is shown in Fig. 3. Thus, pump user has to be
aware that a pump can only perform under its own performance curve and should
always refer to the pump’s performance graph as a guide for the pump to work well
under different circumstances [4].
2.3 Gap Analysis
After extensive review in literature on journal articles, books and internet sources in
the field of natural energy water pump and its application domain, several gaps are
found such as most research were focusing on integrating photo voltaic technology
(solar energy technology) with water pump. However, solar energy is not feasible
in Malaysia remote area due to majority of Malaysia’s tree are Dipterocarpaceae
trees which has extraordinary height that will cover the sunlight and high cloud
cover frequency. On the other hand, limited study had been conducted on micro-
hydroelectric in the past five years (2014–2018). There are demands in Malaysia
because Malaysia has quite a number of remote areas compared to other developed
countries [17]. Apart from that, most of the recent research focus on pumps running
on electricity or electricity generated by other renewable energies, very little study

Design and Development of Renewable Energy Water Pump 335
had focused on developing micro-hydro pump. In this aspect, this study is designed
to fill these gaps.
3 Methodology
This study started with literature review on the natural energy water pumping con-
cepts and key parameters governing the performance of the pumps. Upon determining
the suitable design considerations and operating parameters, a small-scale model is
then developed and tested in laboratory. The performance of the system is recorded
and optimized in the later stage. This an applied research. To achieve the objective
of this study, the methodology plan is shown in Fig. 4.Thisstudyisdividedinto3
phases which will be explained below:
Phase 1: Conceptual Design and CAD Modeling
In this phase of work, software will be employed to design conceptual model of the
device. Initially, the conceptual model would be developed from literature review
findings. Published materials related to natural energy water pumps are reviewed
Fig. 4 Research
methodology

336 M. D. Lee et al.
and from the findings key parameters for the design are generated. The conceptual
design is shown in Fig. 5. The concept modelled after water wheels with angle of
blade about 45° with width of blade 1 ft long with diameter of the wheel of 4 ft
(Fig. 6). The system utilized the flowing river to rotate the wheel too drive a shaft
which in turn the shaft will turns 3 piston pumps using cam mechanism to create
pressure to deliver water (Fig. 7). The piston pumps are connected to check valves
to prevent backflow.
Phase 2: Rapid Prototyping and Functionality Testing
In this phase, a lab scale prototype is developed based on the output from phase 1.
The lab scale prototype developed is shown in Fig. 8. Investigation on the prototype
is carried out to ensure the functionality of the prototype. The prototype is tested
in laboratory by running water through a 1.0 hp pump with average head 25 m and
the flowrate is being controlled and set constant to 50 L/min with pipe diameter of
1in.byballvalve.Theprototypeispartiallysubmergedinthe1000Ltankcovering
about 30% of the water wheel. This will roughly create flow velocity of 1.65 m/s. The
purpose of this is to simulate actual river flow conditions in Malaysia with average
flow velocity of between 1.5 and 4 m/s [18]. The data collected to determine the
performance of this prototype are such as pressure head from gauge meter with the
working of single or triple pumps and the flowrate that generated from the pumps to
plot out pump curve for this system.
Fig. 5 Conceptual model
Fig. 6 Details of conceptual model

Design and Development of Renewable Energy Water Pump 337
Fig. 7 Driving mechanism for pump
Fig. 8 Lab scale prototype
4ResultsandDiscussions
Based on the data collected from laboratory testing, the pump performance curves
are generated based on single pump and triple pump configurations. The pump curves
are shown in Fig. 9.

338 M. D. Lee et al.
Fig. 9 Pump curves
Results from Fig. 9show that with driving only single pump, the system is capable
of delivering maximum pressure head of 7.14 m and maximum flow of 320 ml/min.
Meanwhile, with similar pumps attached together to form a triple pumps configura-
tion, the system is capable of delivering 13.77 m of pressure head and 320 ml/min of
water flowrate. The findings indicate that using river flow as a means to pump water
is possible. The water wheel mechanism is significant to drive up to three piston
pumps with simulated river flow velocity of 1.65 m/s. The findings indicate that the
pressure head generated is quite significant and suitable to deliver water to higher
ground. The main cause of low water flowrate is that the size of piston used in this
study is relatively small. Increasing the size of piston will significantly improve the
flowrate for piston pump. Another limitation for this study is that the water wheel
has only eight blades installed. After consecutive studies, it is to realized that the
efficiency of water wheel can be increased by increasing the number of the blades,
or decrease the angle between two blades [19].
The main aim of this study is to design a water pump suitable for the use in
remote area that is not connected to national power grid. These areas do not have
electricity to power an electrical water pump and also for people who lives in the
higher ground because the outcome of this study indicate that for such application
is possible with adequate pressure head. Not only that, the pump is beneficial to the
agriculture sector as well. Often, there are limited electric access in the planting area
due to the challenging geographical conditions and it would be difficult and costly
for the owner instill an electric grid system when the area is massive. Thus, the
pump can be used to deliver water for agricultural irrigation. In addition, as the water
wheel collected the kinetic energy from the water flow, the energy is then converted
to rotational energy. Other than delivering water, the rotational energy can be used
to run an alternator to produce electricity as well. A simple modification as adding
in a gear train could have increase the rotational speed and is decent for generating
electrical energy.

Design and Development of Renewable Energy Water Pump 339
5 Conclusion
This study is set out to develop a renewable energy water pump to assist rural devel-
opment without assess to national power grid. A lab scale prototype was developed
to test the concept generated from literature review findings. The primary energy
required to drive the pump is flowing energy from the river to drive the water wheel.
Upon collecting the kinetic energy from the river, it is converted to rotational energy
and mechanical energy to power the pump and thus no external source of unrenew-
able energy is involved. The core concept throughout the experiment is to impart
and extract energy from water to execute other significant task where in this study
is to deliver water to secondary location usually at an elevated height. The findings
suggested that the it is possible to use river flow as a mean to pump water and the
pressure head is significant. The design could be improved further to increase the
overall performance such as increase size of piston, increase the number of blades
and modify the blade angles.
Acknowledgements Authors would like to express gratitude for the financial support received
from University College of Technology Sarawak (UCTS) under internal research grant scheme
(UCTS/Research/4/2018/8).
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