Exhibition of low-cost agricultural technologies at CACCC 2019: Hydraulic pump



Hydraulic pump - Simple and witty mechanism, without needing a source of energy and without an engine, raises water to a height of several tens of meters. He can work continuously for months without supervision, adjustment and maintenance, supplying water to a small village or farm. It is possible to make a hydraulic ram on own or assemble it from finished parts used in water supply networks.

Purpose of technology: lifting water to a height for water supply or irrigation.

The training video shows a diagram of the action of a hydraulic ram (pump), which pushes water out due to a hydraulic shock created by the action of valves and an “air bubble”.

The basis of the hydraulic ram is the so-called hydraulic shock - a sharp increase in pressure in the pipeline when the water flow is instantly blocked by the valve. The pressure surge can break the walls of the pipe, and to avoid this, water can be poured to a great height with the help of taps and valves. The first hydraulic ram was built in the city of Saint-Cloud near Paris by the brothers Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier in 1796, 13 years after their famous balloon the theory of hydraulic ram was created in 1908 by the Russian scientist Nikolai Egorovich Zhukovsky. His work allowed improving the design of this device and increasing its efficiency. In America, Australia, and in several other Western countries, the “hydraulic ram”, as a device that can pump water to a height for free, was developed in land reclamation and for various household needs under the name “ram-pump”. In these countries, there are now dozens of small companies specializing in the production and sale of “ram-pump”. Currently, hydraulic ram is used in the mountainous regions of Central Asian countries; it is especially popular in the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan, where farmers supply water from streams in the valleys on mountain terraces for irrigation of agricultural land.

The hydraulic ram is so simple that it can be easily manufactured independently, almost completely assembled from the finished parts used in water supply networks. Missing parts require simple turning and welding. In Tajikistan, in Khorog, local craftsmen from the “Zindagi” cooperative launched the production of hydraulic rams, which became a kind of “workhorse” in mountain villages and pastures.

This publication is available in Russian