Wind powered centrifugal reaction pump for very low head water lifting

Abstract

Wind pump was a familiar technology for Indonesian farmer especially for salt production process. The evaporative salt production was required pumping power for very low head lifting and circulating of sea water. Reciprocating pumps were the most familiar pump type for coupled directly to the crack shaft of wind mill. In other hand, centrifugal reaction pump was a simple centrifugal pump type that could operate at very low shaft speed and very low water head. This experiment study investigated the centrifugal reaction pump for very low water head lifting of 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5 and 3.0 meters head respectively. The pump diameter was 1.5 meters with 5 centimeters pipe diameter. The pump was operated at 60 rpm up to 160 rpm shaft speed. The experiment resulted that the pump cut on shaft speed was depend on the water head. Higher water head also has the higher cut on shaft speed. The lower shaft speed has higher pump efficiency compared to the higher shaft speed. At the various water head, the pump efficiency has similar values at high speed (120 rpm and up).