Water Towers

Goal!

A goal of a water tower is to store water high in the air, where it has lots of gravitational potential energy. This stored energy can be converted to pressure potential energy or kinetic energy for delivery to homes. Since height is everything, building a cylindrical water tower is inefficient. Most of the water is then near the ground. By making the tower wider near the top, it puts most of its water high up.

What a water Tower is!

A water tower is considered a gravity tank. A gravity tank is a large water storage located well above the level of the buildings. The higher the storage tank above your water use outlets, the more pressure there is at your faucets. Water develops a pound of pressure for each 2.3 feet of elevation (height). To supply a minimum of 20 pounds (psi) of pressure at your buildings, a tank would have to be mounted 46 feet (2.3 ft. x 20lbs.) higher than your faucets. The quantity of water being stored has nothing to do with pressure at the faucets. Water-level height is what causes the pressure.

Windmills on Water Towers?

Have you ever seen a windmill on top of the water tower. The windmill on top of the water towers have gears and the wind to pipe the water up into a holding tank. A water tower was a necessary part of life for any one living in the nineteenth century. The water was supplied by electric powered pumps that use water well for drinking water.

Cooling Cites with Fiberglass Water Towers?

One day huge fiberglass towers could help cool cities like Los Angeles while cleaning up the air and providing electricity. Melvin Prueitt, has designs for these towers. The design calls for 650-foot structures supported by steel masts with fiberglass coated with Teflon stretched between the columns for the frame.

Using the sea water or chlorinated waste water would be sprayed at the top of the tower creating a fine mist that causes the air in the tower to become more dense then outside air. The mist is electrostatically charged, and because of the particles in the air carry a charge, they are attracted to each other. Then the drops of water collect pollution from the air. The excess water is drained back into the ocean or waste water facility. The clean air is released at the bottom of the tower. The clean air exits through the skirt section of the tower and is cooler and more dense than the outside air. The humidified air spreads out near the ground, forcing the ambient air to rise and enter the tower top.

When water is sprayed at the top of the towers, the heavier, more dense, air falls through the tower and a cool down draft is created. When the down draft is created it increases the temperature that then lowers the humidity keeping the humidity to 100 percent. The reaming droplets of water absorb some of the pollutants.

This system would remove large amount of pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, ozone, soot and other particles from the air. Prueitt believes 95 towers could take half of the air above Los Angeles every day using water supplied by Pacific Ocean.

Other uses!

Other uses are such as for fire fighting. Fire fighting is the primary use for a water tower. Originally it was used for drinking water for the town. But, now towns are to big and they are using other water storage systems.

Pictures of Different Water Towers!



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Questions or comments email
Jay Kuecker @ jkuecker@gilligan.esu7.k12.ne.us

or Lisa Pfeiffer @ lpfeiff@gilligan.esu7.k12.ne.us or kepfeif@megavision.com