Pumping station

Schematic representation of a chain pump and a piston pump

Wooden Archimedean screw from a wind-powered pumping station

A pumping station is a lifting device for water. It is one of the oldest man-made technical systems. The main area of application is irrigation for agriculture , when the fields are higher than the water (e.g. river ), but also the opposite of this, the drainage of land (e.g. coog or swamps ) or land reclamation or drainage of Lowlands and marshes by the sea and rivers. The water is raised to create a gradient for its drainage, for example into the sea.

Definitions

The terms Schöpfwerk or pumping station are typically used where the drainage is done through an open body of water. If the pumps convey water or other liquids into a pipeline , especially a pressure line , this is called a pumping station . While a pumping station is mostly used to transport liquids in pipelines over longer distances, pumping stations only have the task of lifting the water from a lower to a higher level. The term lifting station is also used, especially in the sewage sector .

Lifting method

The following methods are used to lift the water:

Bucket wheel - a water wheel with buckets
Chain pump - a revolving chain or rope with scoop buckets
Archimedean screw - a snail-like device
Swing boom beam with leverage and counterweight

drive

Pumping stations are powered by various energy sources.

Wind pumps are often used in the Netherlands, but also in other windy regions such as northern Germany. In hydropower , the energy of a running water is used. Where the task was to use water from a river to irrigate fields or to transport it as drinking water to a distant well, it was often possible to operate the pumps with the water power of this river. When it came to lifting water from a drainage system into a body of water with a higher water level, this was only possible in exceptional cases (e.g. for mines) with hydropower, since before the era of electric drives, energy could hardly be transported from the place of its extraction to the place of its application . That is why wind pumps were used for this in windy areas.

In the course of industrialization , more and more steam-powered water pumps of various designs were used , later powered by gasoline or electric motors . Regardless of the drive, the pump itself can still have the shape of an Archimedean screw.

Pumping stations were and are still partly driven by animals today .

particularities

Where water from deep gelegenem marshland into a tidal waters to be conveyed, there are some places two pumping stations: Polder pumping stations raise the water in main channels with higher water levels, mouth pumping stations and sluices carry it through the dike into the tidal waters. In order not to use a lot of energy unnecessarily for the second step, there is a storage basin , also known as a storage polder , in front of the mouth bucket, which can absorb drainage water that has accumulated during the tidal high water, which can then be passively drained through the sluice during the low tidal water (ebb) leaves.

gallery

Al-Jazarī's water pumping station from a manuscript from around 1205

Göpel pumping station (Sakiya) in Nubia , after a painting by David Roberts from 1838

Noria on the Tagus in Toledo

Tubular casing pump from 1928 for the Wasserhorst pumping station in Bremen, which was replaced in 1987

Modern wind-powered pumping station near Lageland, Province of Groningen ( NL )

Swing boom with counterweight

Former pumping station with Goepel drive to Ibiza , there as Noria or Sènia referred
Mills in Kinderdijk , Netherlands
Eisenhammer pumping station on the northern Ryck dike in Greifswald
Kleindalzig pumping station on Profener Elstermühlgraben, lifts its water into the Black Elster
Water paddle