[Gasification] Fw: Humphrey Pump

[David Fulford]

Doug, Kevin and other listers,

The Humphrey pump is one thing of which I have had experience. I worked on 
an R & D project at Reading University in 1975/6 where we built a pump and 
ran it on methane. It had a 6 inch diameter cylinder and pumped up about 20 
feet.

The original Humphrey pump was invented in 1910 by Herbet Humphrey, who 
worked for what became British Gas. It was designed to run on producer gas 
from coke. It was a liquid piston engine, so the explosion worked directly 
on the water being pumped. Six were installed in the King George V 
reservoir at Chingford, East London to pump water from the river Lee. They 
ran from about 1914 to the early 1960s, when UK was moving from town gas to 
natural gas. The engineers converted the gas supply system to the pumps to 
natural gas, then chickened out at the last minute and did not run the 
test. They replaced them with one electric pump. I think the old Humphrey 
pump units are still there, but it is a very long time since I went to see 
them.

Humphrey set up several other pumps in USA, Egypt and the one in Cobdogla 
in Australia, which has been restored to run.

The Reading pump also went to USA, Egypt and Nepal, but interest in the 
pump failed again, so there do not seem to be any units left.

The original pumps were supposed to have an efficiency of 25%, which was 
much better than the steam plants it was designed to replace. Our smaller 
pump had an efficiency of only 10%, but whether that was because it ran on 
methane, or had a smaller diameter bore, so lost more heat energy, I am not 
sure. We measured fairly large shock waves in the water column of the pump. 
The flame speed in producer gas can be more easily varied than in methane, 
but adjusting the gas mixture and the amount of exhaust gases trapped in 
the cylinder. I had a theory that it should be possible to tune the rate of 
gas pressure rise to the movement of the water column, but we ran out of 
time and money before I could test this.

There is an enthusiast in the UK, Don Wells from Nottingham, who has built 
his own Humphrey pump in his garden. Since it includes a 50 m water pipe, 
with a 10 m tower, he has to assemble the piping each time he wants to run 
it. I can try to make contact again and get some pictures. He did say he 
made a video of it.

I have contact with a group in USA who was looking for finance to move 
forward from the work we did in 1976, but we did not get very far with an 
application.

regards,

David Fulford

At 10:15 18/11/2005 +1300, Doug Williams wrote:
>Hi Kevin,
>
>You ask me;
>
> > This is fascinating!! Would you have any idea of the pumping capacity of
>the
> > system? How many gallons per minute could it move, and what head did it
> > generate
>
>I can only refer you to the information printed on their 10 WebPages. They
>say it is more efficient than steam, and makes four gallons of tar/hr! It
>pumped enough water to irrigate 10,000 acres.
>
>  I have another paper that dates back to the first International
>Gasification Conference in 1980 I think, and they show a very small version
>fuelled with a 2lb bottle of propane. I could see these made out of pipe
>fittings on a small scale, maybe fitted with a valve train/combustion
>chamber cast by Dan in Dayton.
>
>This is in my opinion not a silly idea, and all you folk with brains to
>spare, could design up a model for Dan to manufacture. Then buy one off him
>to give him an instant market of about 500 forum members, so all those
>making marginal gas not good enough for engines can put the stuff to work.
>Regards,
>Doug Williams.
>
>
>
>
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*** Dr David Fulford, Energy Group, Engineering Building       ***
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