Thermofluidics Engineers have installed our first deeper-well Pre-Series 0 Impact Pump at George Arombe’s family compound, Rabour, Kisumu province, Kenya. The pump is lifting water from a depth of 24m to serve a community of around 60 people. It is powered by a modified Futurepump SF2.
A treadle pump was spontaneously coupled to one of our gamma-uDAHRs in Kenya over the winter holiday period. This coincided with a minor breakage in the Futurepump SF2 drive pump during a time when no staff were on hand to fix the problem. The farmer reported good performance from the treadle-uDAHR combination, though said he was “looking forward” to having his solar pump working again!
Thermofluidics rebrands the uDAHR as “Impact Pump”, as it moves towards production readiness. The Impact Pump will be launched under the brand “Impact Pumps”.
Thermofluidics has successfully completed 12 months of field trials of the Impact Pump (gamma prototype) at 2 sites in Kenya and 2 sites in Bangladesh, powered by Futurepump SF2 drive pumps. No Impact Pump failures occurred during any of the trials.
UK-based commissioning tests of our new generation of “Pre-Series 0” uDAHR prototypes have been completed in our test well in Beckley, Oxfordshire. The prototype was operated at a typical full solar-pump load for approximately 2000 hours, representing between 1 and 2 years’ typical operation in the field. Although entirely made from machined parts at significant unit cost, the PS0 is one step removed from low-cost mass production processes such as casting, injection moulding, pressing, stamping and extrusion.
We have completed a set of CAD models and drawings for our “Pre-Series 0” prototype. This improves on the gamma uDAHR, currently in operation in Kenya and Bangladesh, in a number of ways. The PS0 offers larger diameter pipework connections with implied greater hydraulic efficiencies (>80%, c.f. 70-75% previously) without increasing the pump diameter. It self-starts with all drive pumps (c.f. only drive pumps with a significant “unsteady” component to their flow), and auto-recovers from dry-running without the need for re-priming. Accelerated testing also indicates a much longer service interval than the gamma-uDAHR is possible. However, this is hard to prove as no gamma uDAHRs have yet required service!
Thermofluidics is creating a new position for a graduate engineer or physicist with 3 or more further years of experience in academia or industry to support our DAHR development work. Please see our jobs page for further information.
Thermofluidics has completed phase 1 controlled-conditions field trials of the latest smallholder irrigation DAHR and NIFTE technologies in collaboration with our development partners in the US, India and Bangladesh.
Thermofluidics has demonstrated a DAHR with 25m long pipes lifting water against a 60m head (surface pressure). Models indicate that a full 60m long apparatus situated in a deep well with an appropriately-sized drive pump will achieve market leading hydraulic efficiencies across a wide range of delivery flows.
Thermofluidics has begun controlled-conditions trials of the DAHR lifting water from depths of between 10m and 30m at sites in Pune and Kolhapur, India and Dhaka, Bangladesh