Re: Water pump information

[Herbert H Gottlieb <herbgottlieb@JUNO.COM>]

I believe that you are referring to the
old-fashioned push-the-handle-down-and-
water-comes-out-of-the-spout lift pump.

1. Pressing the pump handle down lifts a piston
surrounded by a wet leather gasket that closely fits
the vertical water pipe of the pump.

2. As the piston rises, the air pressure below the piston
is reduced and water below the piston is forced upward
in the pipe by the greater external air pressure surrounding it.

3.Raising the pump handle then lowers the piston
into the water and some of this
water goes through a one-way valve in the piston
as it is lowered and cannot return through
the one-way valve.

4. Lowering the pump handle again , raises the piston.
As the water above the piston spills out of the pump spout,
water below the piston again rises due to the lowered
air pressure.

Further lifting an lowering the pump handle continues
to maintain an outflow

Herb Gottlieb from New York City
(Where water comes out of our faucets at home without
the benefit of human inervenion)








On Thu, 07 Feb 2002 11:11:04 -0800 Richard Hake <rrhake@EARTHLINK.NET>
writes:
> In her PhysLrnR post of 1 Feb 2002 13:03:04-0500, titled "Water pump
> information," Marina Milner wrote:
>
> MILNER-MILNER-MILNER-MILNER-MILNER-MILNER-MILNER-MILNER
> I would like to ask for your help. One of my students is working on
> the
> exhibit at the NJ Museum of Agriculture at Rutgers. The exhibit
> deals with
> simple machines. He is looking for information about how simple
> water pump
> works (including the pictures). The pump he is interested in has a
> lever arm
> (I know I have seen those in villages in Russia) and can be simply
> operated
> by pulling it up and down. The web site "How stuff works". . .
> <http://www.howstuffworks.com/>. . . does not talk about this
> particular one. If you know where we can find this information,
> please e-mail us.
> MILNER-MILNER-MILNER-MILNER-MILNER-MILNER-MILNER-MILNER
>
> Since others may be interested in water pumps and/or the "how
> things
> work" approach to physics education, I'm taking the liberty (please
> forgive me) of cross posting this to discussion lists with archives
> at:
>
> PhysLrnR <http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/physlrnr.html>,
> Phys-L <http://mailgate.nau.edu/archives/phys-l.html>,
> Physhare <http://lists.psu.edu/archives/physhare.html>.
>
>
> Section 3.2 "Water Distribution" in the great book by Louis
> Bloomfield (1997), contains a good treatment of water pumps,
> including a picture of one with "a lever arm . . (that). . . can be
> simply operated by pulling it up and down."
>
> For a list of about 25 how-things-work-type books type "How Things
> Work" into the title slot at <http://www.amazon.com/> / "Books" /
> "Search" (where "/" means "click on the following text").
>
> H. Richard Crane's (1992) well-known "How Things Work" contains an
> interesting section on blood pumps in "How to Pump Blood without a
> Heart." BTW, Crane
> <http://www.physics.lsa.umich.edu/department/directory/bio.asp?ID=70>
> is well-known to most nuclear, atomic, and elementary-particle
> physicists, and should be (but is not) familiar to ALL physics
> teachers and physics education researchers. For a referenced
> discussion of Crane's pioneering work in physics education and
> classroom communication systems see Hake (1999).
>
> For a cognitive scientist's explanation of "why things DON'T work"
> check out Norman (1988, 1993). For an engineer's explanation of
> "why
> things DON'T work" see Petroski (1994).
>
> Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
> 24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367 (where simple
> answers to
>    simple questions are rarely given)
> <rrhake@earthlink.net>
> <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>
>
>
> REFERENCES
> Bloomfield, L.A. 1997. "How Things Work: The Physics of Everyday
> Life." John Wiley. For related sites see
> <http://howthingswork.virginia.edu/>,
> <http://howthingswork.virginia.edu/journal/>, and
> <http://howthingswork.virginia.edu/related_sites.html>. For a
> review
> see Rothschild (1999).
>
> Crane, H.R. 1992. "How Things Work" (A Collection of "How Things
> Work" Columns from "The Physics Teacher," 1983-1991.  American
> Association of Physics Teachers.
>
> Hake, R.R. "Re: Is ClassTalk the gold standard? An Historical
> Footnote" PhysLrnR post of 28 Mar 1999 14:39:52-0800, online at the
> unbelievably long and awkward URL (Dewey - what gives with Boise
> State listserv administrators??)
<http://listserv.boisestate.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9903&L=physlrnr&P=R5020&;
X=1677EF7661221F1FB5&Y=rrhake@earthlink.net>.
> Norman, D.A. 1988. "The Design of Everyday Things." Doubleday.
>
> Norman, D.A. 1993. "Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human
> Attributes in the Age of the Machine." Perseus Books.
>
> Petroski, H. 1994. "Design Paradigms: Case Histories of Error and
> Judgment in Engineering" Cambridge University Press.
>
> Rothschild, R.E. Review of "How Things Work: The Physics of Everyday
> Life."
> Am. J. Phys. 67(4):359.


Herb Gottlieb from New York City
(Where it's nice to live but I wouldn't
want to be a tourist here)
herbgottlieb@juno.com