Hydraulic Ram Pump Integration into Water Distribution Systems for Energy Recovery Application

Abstract

This study presents the potential of integrating Hydrams in modern water distribution systems (WDSs) for managing excess pressure and reducing energy costs. Hydrams, which are also termed Hydraulic ram pumps in the literature, is a cyclic water pump powered by hydropower, generally used to pump drinking and irrigation water in mountainous and rural areas having short of power. The Hydrams is introduced as a sustainable low-cost alternative solution to the more conventional pressure reducing valves (PRVs) approach for managing pressure zones in WDSs. Unlike PRVs, where the pressure is lost and not put into good use, Hydrams mitigate excess pressure at high-pressure zones and direct it to much-needed low-pressure zones. In addition, Hydrams are cheap, simple, environmentally friendly, and require little maintenance. The proposed approach integrates a Hydram in parallel to the original centrifugal pump, where they can be operated interchangeably according to the system’s hydraulic needs. Nevertheless, it is vital to correctly size the Hydram at the feed line and accompany it with a proper storage tank at the low-pressure zone. The storage tank serves as a buffer between the intermittent water supply and consumer demand pattern. Moreover, the tank introduces flexibility into the system that allows more sustainable operating schedules. Two case study applications of increasing complexity are presented to demonstrate the potential of this Hybrid system, later referred to as Hybrid Pumping Unit (HPU). The Hydram and tank sizing is done by a simple heuristic approach, while the operation of the system is dictated by a genetic algorithm. The results demonstrate the potential of integrated Hydrams in reducing excess pressures and energy costs.