History of Archimedes screw
The Archimedes screw is the machine to raise water with less effort than lifting buckets. It was invented by Greek scientist Archimedes, to pulling water up easily with less work. The King called upon Archimedes for assistance to empty rainwater from the hull of one of his ships. Historians mentioned that the first evidence of Archimedes screw used is around 250 B.C. Archaeological evidence has led others to posit its earlier invention in Assyria or Egypt. The Archimedes screw is a valuable ancient invention that is also being utilized in the modern world. It was used to empty the water from leaked ships and flooded mines. It was also used to water crops by pulling the water from lakes and rivers. There were many implications that affected the society in the short term. The worker could save their labor by using the machine because their work could be replaced by animals. It became much easier to move water, so it improved their hygiene and food preparation process. In long term, the Archimedes screw became the basis of modern pumps and other technology that we use today. Modern pumps that is using a method of Archimedes screw are effective for pumping sewage from a wastewater treatment plant.
Description of the physics involved in your machine
The force of the rotation is transferred to the water, thus pushing it up the screw. I modified the design so the tube carrying the water is outside the pipe structure. In real life, it is difficult to have the screw carrying the water built inside the pipe structure with the material I choose to use to make the machine. But my design is small, so I can use plastic tube to wrap around the outside of the model of the Archimedes screw. This machine changes rotational energy to potential energy to carry up the water. Larger screw gets more efficient largely. 500W (very small) test screw has a maximum efficiency of 75%. Usually the Archimedes screw has efficiency of about 70%, but it can have efficiencies in the high 90% range in some situation.
For the calculation in the picture, Force and mass are estimated numbers based on feel because the experiment was conducted by hand, not automatically. And for mass, it was not possible to determine the mass of water so I guessed the number based on feel too. I came up with these estimated numbers by using spring scale, but it is not the actual number that was used in my machine.
Design and Building process
Day one: I made a design drawing, and made some holes on 3 bottles by using a drill screw
Day two: we cut out the bottom part of two bottles
Day three: We connected the three bottles together by using a glue gun, and put the plastic tube inside of the bottles and wrapped the bottle with the plastic tube. We used glue gun and tape to fix them firmly.
Day four: We put coloured water inside the bottles to observe the experiment.
References
- http://greenbugenergy.com/sp_faq/how-efficient-is-the-archimedes-screw
- http://www.softschools.com/inventions/history/archimedes_screw_history/14/
- https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/hardware/archimedes-screw
- http://redstoneprojects.com/trebuchetstore/archimedesscrew.html
- http://greenbugenergy.com/how-we-do-it/archimedes-screw-generators