When the water flows through the pipe, it requires sufficient pressure which is created by the elevation difference between the inlet and outlet. If the difference in elevation between the inlet and the out let is more, the water pressure will be high.
High water pressure is required to keep the pipe free from algae, silt and debris, thus prevents clogging. High pressure also increases the velocity of water, and will prevent air locks etc.,
But what do you do when you don't have the luxury of sufficient difference in elevation? that means when you have to transport water from one place to another which is in similar height?
We are exactly having the same problem here. The elevation difference between the source and the distribution point is merely 10 meters. 6 meters will be lost in building a filter and reservoir, while another 3 meters is a head loss bringing down the effective elevation difference to 1 meter. That means, water may or may not flow!
The first issue is to reduce elevation losses due to the construction of filter and reservoir. We have gained 70 cm height by building a dyke across the spring, and installed collection chamber 25 cm above the zero level. We have replaced 'slow sand filter' with 'sand screen filter' which is 25 cm below the collection chamber. We also have decreased the height of the water tank from 4 meters to 2 meters, maintaining the same volume. So, the total elevation loss till here is only 2 meters.
The second issue is head-loss. Head loss is the loss of water pressure due to the friction when the water travels from one end to the other. It depends on the type of pipe, the length of pipe, the diameter, the number of bends, joints etc.,
To minimize the head loss, we have increased the diameter of the pipe to 160 mm, used GI pipe which has less friction and used the shortest but costly route to reduce the length. This brought down the head-loss to 0.88 meters. Now we have elevation difference of 7.1 meters which is great!
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