How to Build an Archimedes Screw

We are Team Shark, a group of Product Design Engineering students and as part of our uni course we've been given the challenge to design and build a water pump.  The task is to design and manufacture a pump that could lift 5 litres of water up a height of 600mm in a time of 5 minutes or less.  We've decided to make an Archimedes Screw and here's how we're getting on. 

Step 1 Materials/ Tools Needed

Materials:
Wood
Wooden dowel (27mm Diameter)
1mm thick sheet steel
1.5m steel rod (19mm Outer Diameter)
1.25m plastic downpipe (65mm Inner Diameter)
Bracket for downpipe
Gearbox (We used one out of a cheap drill)
24V Motor

Tools:
Wood lathe
Metal lathe
Band saw
Sander
Plasma cutter
Bench Grinder
Angle Grinder
Handheld drill
Gas Welder
CNC Machine
Bench Vice
G-Clamps
Solidworks software
 

Comments

[Dragonbone]

You could also seal the outside of the blade to the casing by using it as designed, to pump a small quantity of thick paint (or runny sealant) - this would presumably set wherever the liquid had been.

[fozzy13]

This is awesome! Good work; Archimedes Screws are interesting. You're lucky to have access to so many tools!

[kleinjahr]

Very nice work,helps if you have all the right tools.
If building for actual use,rather than training purposes, you could use an old grain auger for the screw. Also works best if the angle of the pipe is kept between 5 - 15 degrees from horizontal,least amount of slippage.

[Biggsy]

Thiss looks brilliant welldone!

High five for all of you

[TeamShark]

Thanks!

[rimar2000]

This is a very useful Instructable!

[TeamShark]

Thank you :)

[rickharris]

I am by no means belittling your excellent effort BUT you could have achieved the same result, in much less time, with much less equipment and at a much lower cost by wrapping a wide bore PVC tube round a central cylinder. Turning the cylinder cause water to flow up the PVC pipe.

Sorry about the video - suggest turn sound off.

[TeamShark]

We actually ended up having to do this for the final event so that we had a pump that would run off of our motor, it was always our back up but we didn't try to do it in the beginning because we wanted to challenge ourselves with seeing if we could build the Archimedes Screw. The one you've posted works really well!! Ours worked okay, it managed to lift 5 litres up a height of 60cm in 4.5mins so it wasn't bad. Thanks for the comment!