Investigation on characterization of waste valve to optimize the hydraulic ram pump performance

Abstract

Hydraulic ram pump is a mechanical pump that works automatically without the use of electrical energy, but use momentum of the driving water flow to pump a fraction of the water into a reservoir. It consists of two moving parts, they are waste (or impulse) and delivery valves. These valves mechanism generate a high pressure of water hammer that used in hydraulic ram working cycle. The waste valve is a key component of the hydraulic ram. However, in the implementation of hydraulic rams, they takes a long time for sizing and adjusting of their waste valves, because there is no sufficient references in making the design of the waste valve. The characteristics of the waste valve are affected by parameters such as the orifice diameter of valve sitting, the diameter of the valve disc, the stroke length, and the weight of the valve as well as the discharge and head of water supply to drive the hydraulic ram pump. In addition, all these parameters affect each other. Therefore, in this study an experimental work was carried out on hydraulic ram pump model with variation of all parameters of the waste valve. The results show that all of the waste valve design parameters such as valve orifice and disc diameter, valve mass and valve stroke significantly influence the performance of the hydraulic ram pump system. Furthermore, procedures are proposed in determining of the waste valve diameter and its stroke, and a simple formula is proposed for estimating the optimal mass of waste valve that can deliver the best hydraulic ram performance.