Design and Fabrication of Water Ring Vacuum Pump for Portable Pit Evacuation System

Abstract

The poor geographic planning of most towns in Nigeria has made the
evacuation of deep-pit latrines and septic tanks a difficult ordeal, as
most houses are inaccessible to vacuum tankers. This paper presents
a design of a water ring vacuum pump for portable pit evacuation. To
achieve this, a water ring pump was designed and fabricated with the
housing made from 6” PVC pipe and the main shaft, from 2” pipe. It
was designed to create enough vacuum pressure in a 100l sludge tank
from an initial pressure of 101325 Pa to 37302 Pa at a flow rate of
0.0244 m3
/s and pumping speed of 0.035m3
/s. It was tested by using it
to evacuate measured 21 L of five simulated non-Newtonian fluids
with densities of 800 kg/m3
, 930 kg/m3
, 1000 kg/m3
, 1100 kg/m3 and
1200 kg/m3
respectively. The fluids were pumped at three suction
different heads of 1.0m, 1.5m and 2.0m. The fluids pumped
successfully with decreasing flow rates with respect to both fluid
density and suction head. The device can be adopted for use in houses
that are inaccessible to vacuum tankers.