MRN 421 2022

Research Project Proposal

Measuring the performance of geyser pump compared to traditional
airlift pump

Student: KABASA SM

Student No: 16252650

Supervisor: Dr B. BOCK
Background
The Blue revolution has been one of most fast growing global phenomenon since the 1960s. In simple
term the blue revolution is the global growth in the aquaculture industry (Leverage Edu, 2021).
Although the blue revolution has been highly efficient in other parts of the world, it is still yet to make
signification growth in South Africa and this growth can only be attain if there is an increase in the
acquired knowledge of aquaculture systems. If South Africa is to increase its acquired knowledge of
aquaculture systems, it surely increase its chance of standing out as a renowned aquaculture industry
powerhouse globally (Herbst, 2013). Aquaculture systems commonly make use of airlift pumps to
pump water as well as aeration of the system. Significant costs are incurred by airlift pumps during
the pumping and aeration operations (Parker & Suttle, 1987), thus an focus to further develop these
airlift pumps would significant reduce the costs of operation and would increase the prospects of
boosting the aquaculture industry in South Africa to be a global competitor. Currently, there is
relatively less optimisation and design considerations that put in the designing of these airlift pumps
which result in low efficiency and high cost of operating these airlift pumps.

Problem Statement
A vast majority of the airlift pumps that are being used in aquaculture application have very little
design considerations to enhance maximum performance of these airlift pumps. The following aspect
of pump performance will be investigated by investigating the performance of the geyser pump
compared to the traditional airlift pump.

Goal
The goal for this project is to design and evaluate the performance of the geyser pump and
compared its performance to that of the traditional airlift pump.

Scope
This project will investigate the geyser pump performance as compared to the traditional airlift pump
for the duration of the first and second semester at the University of Pretoria. The budget of the
project is to be delivered within the allocated budget of R500. The project will experimentally measure
the performance of the geyser pump across 6 different airflow rates and then making the comparison
of the collected results with the traditional airlift pump figures from the literature study. The project
will evaluate the performance of the geyser by varying only the airflow rate making this the only
variable for this investigation. The project might also face limitation that may arise in the schedule due
to the Covid-19 pandemic which might affect the progression of some events in the planned schedule
for the project. Secondly another the limitation that the project might incur might include the ability
to get suppliers of some of the required components of the geyser pumps as most of airlift pumps are
“do t yourself” designs. The key deliverables of project include literature finding for traditional pump
performance; modelling the experiment of measuring the geyser pump performance, progress report,
main report; planned experimentation of the modelled experiment; reflection on the experimentally
determined results; compilation of the final report.

Plan
Week No: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
Task

Introductory
lecture

Client
Meeting
RPP
Submission

Literature
study for Test Test
experimental Week week
and 1 2
numerical
components
of the project
Progress
Report
Submission
Modelling of
the
experiment

Final report
submission
for MRN 412

Carryout the
modelled
experiment

Collect and
reflect on the
experiment
results
Final report
for MRN 422
submission
References
Herbst, S., 2013. SA moving to secure its share of world aquaculture growth. [Online]
Available at: https://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/sa-moving-to-secure-its-share-of-world-
aquaculture-growth-2013-07-26-1
[Accessed 14 January 2022].

Leverage Edu, 2021. What is Blue Revolution?. [Online]

Available at: https://leverageedu.com/blog/what-is-blue-revolution/
[Accessed 14 January 2022].