Khan 1

Third World Mission

The remote mountainous village in Columbia is having clean water problem and it is necessary to take some immediate action to provide fresh water to the settlers. This report includes some ideas about how to solve this problem and a solution has been proposed.

Khan 2 Abstract A mountainous village in Columbia is facing a clean water problem, and a solution is needed. According to our knowledge, there are two solutions: purifying the water contaminated with sulfuric acid, or bring water to the village from the nearest source, which is 5,000 feet below the mountain, and 16 miles away. Bringing water from the nearest clean source is chosen as the primary solution with the detail design of the project implementation. Introduction The local water source has become polluted with Sulfuric acid and it is unsafe for the villagers to drink the water. The nearest source for clean water is 5,000 feet below the settlement and 16 miles away. There are mainly two challenges exist in order to provide clean water. First is, if we choose to purify the local source, we need an advance water purifying technology to clean out the sulfuric acid. The other challenge is, the distance and the vertical height of the settlement. We need a pump strong enough to bring the water from the big river and pump is 5,000 feet high on top of the mountain. Evaluation of Concepts There are two basic way to provide fresh water. First is setting up an advance water purification system to clean the water of the local source. We need to check for four important things when try to work with acid water. They are:

pH Alkalinity Hardness (calcium carbonate)

Khan 3

Total Dissolved Solids

The water is contaminated with sulfuric acid, so the pH level will be way below 7.0. It will be very hard to bring the pH level up to 7.0. Even if we can neutralize the water, we also need to consider the other three things. It will be very challenging to set up a complex water treatment plant in a remote tribal village which can neutralize the water and filter it to make it drinkable. An engineer always need to be there to control the plant and also, it will be very expensive to keep the plant running continuously. The other way is to pump the water from the big river 16 miles away and pump it 5,000 feet above the ground level. The idea in this scenario is simple: get a pump and keep it running. However, the challenge is to install a pump strong enough to carry the water that far and that high above the ground level. In comparison between purifying and pumping; pumping water to the village is much better, cheaper and simpler way to provide water to the village. Concept Selection In order to carry the water up in the mountain from the big river, we need to do it in two steps. The first step is to set up a water pumping station with centrifugal pump on the river bank which will pump the water from the river. The horizontal distance of the 16 miles will not be a problem. It will take some time to travel 16 miles, but the water will reach there eventually. We know Pascals law of hydraulic pressure is = To pump the water horizontally, we can ignore the height is this equation. So, as long as we can pump the water with a pressure of about 10 kPa, water can reach any distance horizontally. Typical water pressure of a municipal water supply in the US is

Khan 4 about 300 to 700 kPa. So, Pumping water to 16 miles of horizontal distance will not be a big challenge if we set up a strong pump with higher flow rate on the bank of the river. The biggest challenge will be to pump up the water 5,000 feet. To pump up the water that high. It is not impossible, but certainly challenging. Engineers are pumping water at tall skyscrapers, like Burj Khalifa which stands about 2,700 feet tall. In our case, the height is about 5,000 feet, but as it is on top of a mountain, we will have the slope of the mountain, which will make our job easier. On the bottom of the slope of the mountain, we will set up a booster pump to increase the pressure, which will pump up the water high. At around 3,000 feet above the ground, we can set up another booster pump which will make sure the constant water flow and also reduce the workload from the base booster pump. If we cannot get power supply to use the booster pump on the slope of 3,000 feet above the ground, we will use few hydraulic rams to pump the water up. We will use a thinner pipe too when we go uphill, as the pressure depends on the diameter of the pipe carrying water. One important thing when selecting the pipe will be, we need special pipe which can handle extreme pressure. When the water goes up very high, the pressure will be extreme and, if the pipe is not strong enough, possibility of leakage is very high. On top of the mountain, we will need to create a water storage tank to store water, in case there is any kind of failure on the constant supply. If there is a failure, the water storage will be used to supply water to the villagers, and give the engineers some time to fix the problem. Summary Among the two simple idea, pumping water to the village from the big river is much easier and simpler than setting up a water filtering treatment. To make the

Khan 5 project work, all we need is a strong centrifugal pump to carry the water from the river to the base of the mountain, and two booster pumps to pump it up to the top. The only other thing we need to concern about is the water pipe we use when we are going up the mountain. Also, we need to consider the ergonomics, and if we consider between filtering and pumping, pumping gets higher rating in every single criteria. To summarize, this is what we need to provide the settlers with clean water:

A centrifugal pump on the bank of the rive A booster pump on the base of the mountain Another booster pump at about 3,000 feet above the ground level If power supply not available of the slope of the mountain, a hydraulic ram Special kind of pipe to handle the pressure of water high above the mountain

End of the report Akib Khan