the treadle pump design solution

Ann, Filipe, Jon, and Peter created a prototype treadle pump that they showed off during their symposium presentation on april 17^th.  it was compact, looked durable, and functioned very easily, even dry.

the finished design

their presentation was equally impressive!  it was attention-grabbing, well-organized, and as professional as anything I’ve seen in 23 years of being in industry.

 

the team’s solution to the problem of affordable irrigation for rural farmers was smaller and lighter than the original ATC design, and pumped water at the theoretical limit of pumping height for such a pump (7.5 meters).  it had a small, solid footprint and no need for a handle.  the wood frame can easily be made on site with local materials like bamboo.  they also employed a mesh screen to protect the valves from larger pieces of contamination.  the students designed a valve box and pump housing instead of the external plumbing and connections used on the original pump design.  spring-loaded check valves divided the box into intake and output chambers instead of using a piece of thin rubber sheet in the pistons themselves.  steel was used for the pump housing/cylinders instead of PVC for the sake of durability and better flow control.  the pistons were made of sheet metal and simple bar stock.  due to time constraints, they were not able to injection-mold their own piston seals (though they had plans to), so they used the ones they got with the MoneyMaker pump.  the team even painted the whole prototype in the colors of the Indian flag (their primary target market). 

India's flag

incidentally, this worked out well since the flag colors are MSU’s colors (green and white) plus orange.

here are the specs between the original ATC design and the MSU students’ design:

	Original ATC Pump	MSU Treadle Pump
flow rate	4 gal/min	10 gal/min
operating force	10 lbs	45 lbs
overall weight	110 lbs	60 lbs
prototype cost	over $400	about $100

original ATC and new MSU treadle pumps