CA2224054A1 - Water pumping apparatus utilizing compressed air - Google Patents

Abstract

A method of and device for providing compressed air of this invention comprise: a vessel proper (1) having an air chamber that can hermetically seal air therein, and being in structure capable of reducing the internal volume of said air chamber correspondingly to the external hydraulic pressure; a compressed air recovery vessel (30) connected to said air chamber through a check valve (32), into which vessel the compressed air is fed under pressure when the internal volume of said air chamber (12) is reduced correspondingly to the external hydraulic pressure; and a weight (40) fixed to these vessels forenabling these vessels to sink into water. A water pumping device of this invention using compressed air thus obtained comprises: a hermetic vessel (84 or 110) provided with a hermetic water tank (88 or 114) and air expansion chamber (90 or 116), and disposed between an upper stream side reservoir (80) for the power generating unit and a lower stream side reservoir (82) for storing used water after power generation; a water inflow pipe (92) used for introducing water from said lower stream side reservoir (82) into said hermetic water tank (88 or 114) and connected to said hermetic water tank; a water pressure-feeding pipe (94) used for feeding water in the hermetic water tank (88 or 114) into said upper stream side reservoir (80) under pressure and connected to said tank; water flow control valves (98, 100) provided in said water inflow pipe (92) and water pressure-feeding pipe (94) respectively; and a compressed air containing vessel (30) fixed to the device through water flow control valves, by which vessel compressed air for pressure-feeding water in said hermetic water tank to said upstream side reservoir (80) through said pressure-feeding pipe (94) can be discharged with the internal volume of said air expansion chamber (90 or 116) increased.