Plunger Pump
The ancients moved water to irrigate and to water livestock. As cities developed, moving water in an efficient manner was crucial to the supply of daily personal and civic needs. Water was necessary for drinking, cleaning, ceremonial purposes, food and material processing, and waste removal. Water was needed everywhere. The common method of transportation was to fill a container at a central well and to haul it home. As cities grew, this method of water movement became more and more difficult. This was a problem for the engineers of Greece and Rome to solve.
As a young man, Ctesibius was curious about everything. As a Greek growing up in Alexandria, Egypt, he was surrounded with the bustle of an important trading port and center of learning. The great Library of Alexandria was a magnet to scholars for almost 300 years attracting the great minds like Heron, Archimedes Euclid, Eratosthenes, Hipparchus, and others. Ctesibius was the son of a barber, and thus initially constrained to acquire the trade. In the barber shop, Ctesibius observed and experimented. He noticed that when a ball was allowed to drop through a tube, a "whoosh"of air was flushed out of the tube. This stimulated a series of experiments, discoveries and engineering applications. Let us see if we can re-discover some of those same applications. For more information about Ctesibius, see Ctebius Background
Building a Syringe Pump
Let's get familiar with the syringe--a perfect plunger for our pump.
Attach it to plastic aquarium tubing and use it with a "T" fitting to assist the siphon.
Check Valve
To make a proper suction pump we need a check valve. Study the operation of the check valve below.
Water or air can flow in this direction...
But, when the flow is reversed, the ball seats against the valve and shuts off the flow...
The fluid can flow in one direction, but is "checked" in the opposite direction.
Now we can add this to our syringe:
This allow the pump to operate as follows:
