章節 38: Archimedes' Pump
Chris spent the rest of the day in his tent working out a way to deliver water efficiently to the camp.
Water usage was going up every day with the rising heat. And now even more people just joined the camp, the current system of carrying water by carriage from the nearby river was not sustainable. A more efficient and automated process was needed.
By freeing the carriages and their coachmen, they would have an increased ability to transport materials and tools to the construction site up east. And they would be able to better assist refugees moving to the village later.
A better delivery system would, of course, allow for better hygiene in the camp and a better mood overall. This was especially true since the rationing of water did not allow people to bathe after a hard day of work. Chris even started noticing how Mia sat farther and farther away each passing day.
[This can't be allowed to continue!] Thought Chris. [Water for the people!]
Luckily he almost had everything ready, and he only needed the finishing touches.
He took out a few leather scrolls from his secret stash.
[This part should be fine.] That scroll contained the blueprint for the water tower he was planning on building.
The water tower was an absolute necessity for two reasons. First, the ground between the water tower and the camp was relatively even; there was no slope to let the water flow down to the camp. Secondly, he needed a buffer, as people didn't use water at a constant rate all throughout the day. There were ups and downs in usage, and the water tower would be that buffer.
[The river is half an hour away from the camp. The ground between here and the river is relatively flat. There is no slope to allow the water to flow down to us. Therefore, the best way is to build a water tower, and the water pressure will do all the work for us.] He looked at the first scroll. On it were the blueprints of the water tower and the piping design.
After consulting with Aiden, he planned on using rocks and mortar for the water tower. His biggest worry was to keep it as waterproof as possible. Luckily, this world already had something for waterproofing. It was mainly used for roofs in the old capital. All they needed was the gelatinous sap of the Yellow Barfing Tree, some normal tree sap, and a little bit of coal ash.
To prepare the mixture they only needed to leave the sap of the Yellow Barfing Tree under the sun for a couple of hours until it turned gelatinous, and then mix in at a 1/200 ratio the sap of any other forest tree and finally add a pinch of ashe for every barrel of the mixture.
The result would be a paste that would harden in a few minutes and turn waterproof.
This was a reminder to Chris that he was in a different world, and not just in a different time on his own world. If he wanted a chance to survive and succeed, he would need to find out more about the materials and plants of his world.
[Maybe I should ask Mia to lend me some books.] He thought. This was probably his best excuse to date to see her.
[The piping is the easiest part. We can't afford to make them out of anything but wood. Stone would take too much manpower and too long. We have other projects going on in the camp, like housing, that require a lot of manpower. And we can't use metal either, all available metals are either too scarce or would kill us with rust.] Chris quickly finished the blueprint for the piping.
Chris drew many different duct shapes. The way from the water tower was flat, and they would need to use straight piping for most of the way, but they would still need to redirect the flow at times, particularly once it reached the city. So he made sure to prepare blueprints for the T shapes, cross shapes, bend junctions and so on.
[That should be everything we need.] He said as he checked out his work. [I've got to be careful, however. These blueprints will most likely be used for decades for housing and city planning. No mistakes are allowed!]
He put the leather scrolls away after making sure he was satisfied, and it was now time for the last crucial part. It was his favorite part. He needed to find a way to pump the water from the river into the water tower. This was a funny thing. The goal of the water tower was exactly that, to push water far away and up. But for that, they first needed to push it up themselves.
And for that, there was just one solution. He had to build or design a machine, a pump, that could function without electricity. And he was clear on one thing; he did not want to use manpower to activate the pump or to carry it up the water tower. This had to work 24/7 and only need people for maintenance. The goal was to free manpower and have an efficient system after all.
The first idea that came to him, was a modified version of the Barsha pump.( https://www.dropbox.com/s/q5oohr5bs4cs1ji/Barsha%20pump%20%28chap%2048%29.jpg?dl=0 )
This was a design from his old world. It worked pretty well, it was easy to build, and it was very resilient.It was essentially a coiled tube was attached to a water wheel. The river flow would turn the water wheel, and the end of the coiled tube would collect water every cycle, pushing it up inside the tube and adding pressure, allowing the water to be pumped above the river's level. It ticked almost every single prerequisite. No manpower was needed, it would pump water as long as the water wheel was in the river, and it was efficient.
There was a downside however, in its simplest designs it could only pump the water as high as the top of the coiled tube itself. Chris could improve its design and make a more efficient Barsha pump by making the coiled tube much thinner. A thinner tube meant that the Barsha pump would have more coils for the same height,and the water in each coil would add more pressure and thus allow for the water to reach a height of at least ten times that of the pump itself. But such a design would just collapse on itself if they used their current technology and materials.
So Chris started from scratch.
He needed another simple design, after all, the more complicated something was, the more likely it would break down.
So he went for an older design that would work better for his needs.
He borrowed from Archimedes' screw pump ( https://www.dropbox.com/s/aj5asz3fxlkmtmc/archi%20pump%20design%20%28chap%2048%29%20.jpg?dl=0 ).
A classic and timeless device. It was created somewhere in 200 BCE, and it was still used nowadays in electrically powered devices that range from water pumps, snow blowers, earth drills and so on.
That's because it's an elegant and simple design that requires little maintenance.
This is, of course, true of the pump using his screw design. The pump works by placing the end of a straight wooden tube into the water. Inside the tube, a large helicoid screw would rotate and push the water up until it flowed out of the top into the water tower.
This meant the tube and screw had to be at least as tall as the height difference between the river and the top of the water tower.
The original design was manually operated as people used to turn a crank to rotate the screw. But it was easy enough for Chris to modify the blueprints so that the river's flow did the work with a water wheel.
The beauty of this design was that the screw did not have to make a watertight seal with the pump's pipe. Something perfect for their current situation. Rinat was talented, but making a perfect seal with their current tools would take many trials and errors and Chris wanted it up as soon as possible. It had to be in place in a matter of days.
And with this design, as long as it was "good enough" and the screw picked up more water in the river than it lost, it would work perfectly. This was because the water that would leak down would then be pushed up by the rising water. As long as the seal between the screw and the tube at the bottom wasn't too bad, it would work great. And Rinat would have time to perfect the manufacturing for future models.
Rinat is mentioned because Chris decided to use wood, mainly for safety reasons. It wouldn't be funny if everyone in the city had rust poisoning.
Now that he was happy with his work, he added a slight modification to the water tower design. He added an outflow pipe on top of the water tower, to let water out in case it overfilled. After all, the screw pump would never stop until broken, or until the water wheel was out of the water.
"Perfect." Said a satisfied Chris. But he was now faced with the hardest decision since the start of this project.
[Do I show this to Mia or do I go straight to Rinat and surprise Mia with the finished product?]
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