In the late 1st century BC, the ancient Greek mathematician and craftsman Thesbia invented the oldest water pump. It uses a plunger to reciprocate in a cylinder to pump water. This can be said to be The prototype of today's piston pump. Almost at the same time, Archimedes, a famous ancient Greek scientist in 200 BC, invented a "screw water pump" that used a screw to lift water. Its principle is the same as today's screw pump.
Around 100 BC, the ancient Roman architect Pydos invented a water pump. There were two bronze cylinders in the pump. The pistons in the cylinder could move up and down to pump water up. . In the Roman era, due to the highly developed hydraulic engineering, many different types of water pumping machinery were produced.
In the 5th century AD, the Portuguese produced a wooden two-vane pump, which was the prototype of the modern centrifugal pump. During the Italian Renaissance in the 15th century, Leonardo da Vinci, a master of art and science, designed a piston pump based on the same principle as Pytos. After the 16th century, people began to use piston pumps in production, and new water pumping devices continued to emerge.
In 1581, the water pumping facility built by Berta Morris in England used the flow of the Thames River to drive a waterwheel to rotate, and then used the waterwheel as power to drive a piston pump to pump water. It was the first water-powered pump and the world's first large-scale pumping station, delivering running water to the City of London. In 1588, Lameri in Italy also designed a water pumping device based on the same principle as Morris. After that, many cities in Europe used water pumps to transport tap water.
After the birth of the steam engine at the end of the 18th century, it was gradually used as the power for water pumps. The Marquis of Somerset in England began researching steam pumps in 1682, and in 1633 he obtained eight patents for steam pumps. After that, in 1859, Winsington of the United States created the "Winsington piston pump" with better performance and named it after him.
In the development process of water pumps, people gradually discovered that in the internal pumping method of water pumps, compared with reciprocating motion, the structure of the former is simpler and the use of external power is more convenient. Therefore, after entering the 18th century, water pumps with rotating structures developed faster than piston and were used more widely.
At the beginning of the 18th century, France made the first volute vane pump. In 1818, the United States invented a simple centrifugal pump using centrifugal blades. On this basis, McCarthy created a centrifugal pump with better performance in 1830, which was widely used in New York at that time. In the middle of the 19th century, multi-pole vane pumps and twisted vane pumps were born, which greatly improved the working efficiency and water lifting height of water pumps. Since then, the research on pumps has been more in-depth, and turbo pumps have emerged.
In modern times, the invention of gasoline engines, diesel engines and electricity have provided water pumps with more powerful, reliable and flexible power, greatly expanding the scope of use of water pumps. In the Middle Ages and before, water pumps mainly provided running water to the upper classes. By the 17th and 18th centuries, the service targets of water pumps expanded to urban civilians, factories, and mines. It was not until the 19th or even 20th century that water pumps truly became common farmland drainage and irrigation machinery. With water pumps, abundant groundwater can be utilized in large quantities and water can be diverted uphill. In modern farmland irrigation and drainage, water pumps play a very important role.